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The  Deeper  Faith 


By 

Carlos  Wuppermann 


G.    P.    Putnam's   Sons 

New    York    and    London 

Ube  KnicKerbocfiec  press 
1921 


Copyright,   192 1 

by 

J.  W.  Wuppermann 

Printed  in  the  United  Slates  of  America 


/^"^ 


J.  I.  c. 


It  fortifies  my  soul  to  know 
That,  though  I  perish,  Truth  is  so: 
That,  howsoe'er  I  stray  and  range, 
Whate'er  I  do.  Thou  dost  not  change. 
I  steadier  step  when  I  recall 
That,  if  I  slip.  Thou  dost  not  fall. 

A.  H.  Clough. 


FOREWORD 

THE  following  pages  of  collected  notes — 
for  they  can  lay  claim  to  no  more  dig- 
nified title — are  not  to  be  taken  as  an  attempt, 
carefully  to  formulate  and  logically  to  develop 
an  exigent  creed  of  life.  They  are  rather  to 
be  viewed  as  the  stray  musings  of  one  who, 
whatever  his  failings  and  limitations,  has 
brought  to  the  pursuit  of  truth  the  earnest- 
ness born  of  deep  and  enduring  joy.  Such 
unity  as  this  little  book  possesses  will  be 
found  to  lie  in  the  attitude  toward  life  under- 
lying it  as  a  whole — an  attitude,  one  might 
say,  as  old  as  the  human  race,  and  which  is 
continually  and  forcibly  reasserting  itself,  in 
spite  of  the  instinctive  and  oftentimes  violent 
opposition  of  the  masses  of  men. 


vu 


The  Deeper  Faith 


The  Deeper  Faith 


THIS  universe  is  certainly  not  the  best 
universe  which  we  can  imagine  to  exist 
— it  is  much  better  than  that.  Truth  is 
sweeter  than  the  sweetest  song  the  lips  of  the 
poet  have  molded;  it  is  not  only  stranger  but 
also  more  admirable  than  fiction.  Far  be- 
yond the  noblest  vision  of  prophet  and  of 
saint,  beyond  the  echo  of  the  celestial  har- 
monies, is  the  dwelling  place  of  Reality,  and 
our  ideals  are  but  the  gossamer  filaments 
which  unite  us  to  an  unimaginable  Beauty, 
transcending  the  creations  of  mind  and  heart. 
Every  true  philosopher  foresees  his  ultimate 
failure  ere  ever  he  begins  his  task.  He  knows 
— who  so  well  as  he — that  no  system  of 
human  thought  can  adequately  express  the 
Glory  that  is  beyond  the  stars.  "Expand 
your  vision  as  you  will,"  says  to  him  a  secret 
3 


4  The  Deeper  Faith 

voice,  "purify  it,  free  it  from  all  that  seems 
to  you  gross  and  earthy,  pour  into  it  all  that 
is  truest  in  your  soul,  yet  will  it  remain  at  the 
last  but  a  scratched  and  clouded  mirror, 
which  distorts,  even  while  it  dimly  reflects, 
the  splendor  of  Reahty." 


II 

In  these  days  of  dying  creeds  and  of  "new 
religions,"  of  quack  doctors  of  the  soul  and 
their  impossible  panaceas — in  these  days  of 
mental  confusion  and  consequent  spiritual 
corwardice,  it  is  well  to  remember  that  no  true 
child  of  Beauty  can  ever  perish,  and  that 
nothing  which  is  not  beautiful  is  immortal. 
If  this  thing  be  of  God,  if  it  have  in  it  the  life- 
giving  breath  of  Beauty,  it  will  endure, 
mauger  all  the  syllogisms  which  logic  may 
marshal  against  it.  For  a  beautiful  dream  is 
invulnerable — save  only  in  the  face  of  a  more 
beautiful  dream.  In  the  spiritual  realm 
there  are  only  pleasant  surprises.    Zeus  over- 


The  Deeper  Faith  5 

throws  Cronos,  and  Jehovah  Zeus ;  and  always 
man's  conscience  approves  the  victory.  Al- 
ways the  fittest  God  survives,  and  always  the 
fittest  is  the  best.  Idea  clashes  with  idea, 
system  with  system,  but  in  the  end  emerges 
Beauty,  chaste,  serene,  her  garments  unsoiled 
by  the  dust  of  conflict. 


Ill 

If  we  will  but  open  our  eyes  we  shall  see 
that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  disillusionment. 
Smiling  and  unafraid  we  shall  welcome  each 
new  discovery  in  the  realm  of  scientific  and 
philosophic  thought ;  for  we  shall  understand 
that  nothing  can  become  true  until  it  has  first 
become  beautiful.  For  Truth  is  the  expres- 
sion of  fact  in  terms  of  Beauty ;  and  there  is 
no  fact  which  is  incapable  of  being  thus 
apotheosized.  Therefore  it  behooves  us  to 
remain  undisturbed  in  the  face  of  the  most 
threatening  fact  which  the  future  may  hold  in 
store ;  since  it  is  but  for  us  to  remember  that 


6  The  Deeper  Faith 

the  fact  which  to-day  seems  most  inimical  to 
the  peace  of  our  souls,  to-morrow  either  will 
have  ceased  to  be  or  will  have  been  trans- 
muted into  a  truth  even  more  consoling  than 
that  to  which  we  now  cling  with  all  the  ardor 
of  our  deepest  desires. 


IV 

It  is  not  possible  that  we  should  be  too 
confident  of  the  future.  We  know  the  worst 
of  life,  but  "the  best  is  still  to  be."  It  is  not 
from  too  great  sorrow  that  the  gods  deem  it 
necessary  to  protect  us ;  it  is  from  the  light  of 
a  too  intense  happiness  that  they  have  shaded 
our  eyes  with  their  merciful  wings.  Man  may 
look  upon  hell  with  imfaltering  determina- 
tion, but  the  glory  of  heaven  is  not  for  mortal 
vision.  The  pure  white  light  of  Truth  must 
be  broken  into  a  thousand  lesser  rays  by  the 
prism  of  our  illusions  ere  it  can  serve  for  the 
strengthening  of  our  eyes  and  the  nourishing 
of  our  souls.    Evil  stares  us  in  the  face,  a 


The  Deeper  Faith  7 

naked,  shameless  fact;  but  Goodness  is 
modest  beyond  all  the  dwellers  on  Olympus. 
She  is  a  virgin  who  veils  her  countenance  from 
the  gaze  of  her  too  ardent  lover.  She  knows 
well  the  madness  of  desire  which  one  glance 
at  her  unveiled  loveliness  would  arouse  in  his 
soul.  And  she  is  merciful :  she  will  not  mad- 
den him  with  the  vision  of  the  unattainable. 
Only  for  a  favored  few,  whose  spiritual  sight 
has  been  strengthened  by  self -discipline,  has 
she  consented  to  draw  aside  a  little  corner  of 
the  veil;  that  they  might  glimpse,  as  in  a 
dream,  a  fragment  of  her  shining  self.  And 
they  remain  her  slaves.  These  are  the  saints 
and  heroes  of  humanity,  in  whose  eyes  is  a 
reflection  of  the  light  that  never  was  on  land 
or  sea.  But  for  us  is  only  the  silver  wonder  of 
our  dreams,  and  a  tremor  of  awe  at  thought  of 
that  which  lies  beyond — with  steadfast  grop- 
ing on  and  on  from  truth  to  greater  truth. 
And  at  the  last  is  the  Vision — a  seeing  face  to 
face.  But  not  now.  Now  we  must  be  content 
with  a  mystic  beauty,  dim  and  elusive;  for  if 
we  should,  even  for  an  instant,  behold  Reality 


8  The  Deeper  Faith 

in  its  pure,  crystal  splendor,  our  hearts  would 
break  with  joy. 


In  writing  of  Stevenson,  Mr.  Chesterton 
says:  "It  is  quite  inappropriate  to  judge 
The  Teller  of  Tales  by  the  particular  novels 
he  wrote,  as  one  would  judge  Mr.  George 
Moore  by  Esther  Waters.  These  novels  were 
only  the  two  or  three  of  his  soul's  adventures 
that  he  happened  to  tell.  But  he  died  with  a 
thousand  stories  in  his  heart."  Perhaps  were 
these  thousand  untold  stories  the  best  of  all 
Stevenson's  stories.  Perhaps  what  is  most 
worth  while  in  each  of  us  is  that  which  we 
cannot  express  in  words,  even  to  our  dearest 
friend.  It  seems  that  the  divine  in  us  can 
never  receive  adequate  expression  in  this 
life,  that  the  highest  faculties  of  our  souls 
have  no  relation  to  the  souls  of  others.  It 
seems  that  we  are  doomed  from  birth  to  a 
sublime  isolation,  and  that  peace  can  be 
found  only  in  accepting  the  decree  of  destiny 


The  Deeper  Faith  9 

that  we  should  live  in  large  measure  lonely 
lives. 

Herein  lies  the  inadequacy  of  utilitarianism, 
that  it  overlooks  the  uselessness,  from  a  social 
standpoint,  of  much  that  is  noblest  in  the  hu- 
man heart.  What  the  individual  is  to  society 
is  only  a  fraction  of  his  real  worth — sometimes, 
indeed,  there  is  no  relation  between  the  two. 
Many  immoral  men  have  been  of  the  greatest 
use  to  society  (as  witness.  Napoleon)  while  the 
life  of  the  saint  seems  to  us  often  wasted. 

What  we  are  to  ourselves  is  the  measure  of 
our  true  worth;  for  the  mark  of  character  is 
the  ability  to  live  alone.  Solitude  is  the 
crucible  in  which  the  metal  of  our  souls  is 
tested.  Only  the  happiness  that  has  passed 
unscathed  through  the  wilderness  of  spiritual 
isolation,  can  be  called  genuine  and  enduring. 


VI 

What  is  the  essential  difference  between 
the  Greek  and  the  Christian  views  of  life? 


10  The  Deeper  Faith 

It  seems  to  me  to  lie  in  the  absence  in  Greek 
thought  of  the  Christian's  sense  of  a  certain 
inconsistency  between  the  subjective  and  the 
objective  worlds.  The  inner  life  was  to  the 
Greek  adequate^  expressed  by  external 
achievements ;  the  inner  life  to  the  Christian 
transcends  all  objective  expression.  The 
Greek  had  no  concept  of  the  Inexpressible, 
that  concept  which  lends  so  much  poignancy 
to  Christian  thought. . 

"  All  I  could  never  be, 
All  men  ignored  in  me. 
This  I  was  worth  to  God, — " 

Such  a  sentiment  is  quite  alien  to  Hellenic 
thought.  The  individual  and  the  social  were 
to  the  Greek  perfectly  equated,  and  that  is 
perhaps  why  his  concept  of  immortality  was 
so  shadowy.  He  had  no  knowledge  of  powers 
of  the  individual  soul  which  cannot  find 
adequate  embodiment  in  the  life  of  earth. 

From  this  point  of  view  it  is  easy  to  under- 
stand the  perfect  balance  and  harmony  of 
Greek  art.    The  Hellenic  artist  attained  ex- 


The  Deeper  Faith  n 

haustive  expression  of  his  conscious  self  in  his 
works,  and  for  this  reason  his  art  lacks  a  sense 
of  mystery.  Greek  art  triumphs  by  what  it 
expresses;  Christian  art  by  what  it  suggests. 
This  is  easily  demonstrated  by  comparing  the 
Parthenon  with  a  Gothic  cathedral. 


VII 

There  are  many  Hellenists  among  us  to- 
day ;  and  they  have  an  important  part  to  play 
in  the  regeneration  of  our  civilization.  In 
fact  it  is  to  them  rather  than  to  the  Christians 
that  we  must  look  for  the  great  social  leaders 
who  shall  bring  us  out  of  the  wilderness  of 
social  wrong  into  which  we  have  strayed. 
For  the  danger  of  the  Christian  point  of  view 
lies  in  this :  that  while  it  emphasizes  the  dis- 
cord between  the  individual  and  the  world, 
it  places  its  hope  in  the  personal  development 
of  the  isolated  soul  rather  than  in  the  ever 
more  adequate  expression  of  the  inner  life  of 
the  soul  in  the  common  life  of  earth ;  and  thus 


12  The  Deeper  Faith 

it  tends  to  make  its  adherents  indifferent  to 
social  progress.  However,  it  is  only  in  at- 
tempting to  mold  the  world  to  the  fashion 
of  our  dreams  that  we  strengthen  our  dreams 
so  that  they  can  transcend  the  world.  The 
loftier  the  things  which  we  learn  adequately 
to  express,  the  loftier  becomes  our  concept 
of  the  Inexpressible — that  concept  which  is 
the  ultimate  source  of  all  our  spiritual 
strength. 


VIII 

In  the  last  analysis  all  love  is  the  love  of  the 
Unknown.  If  to  know  all  is  to  forgive  all,  it  is 
perhaps  because  to  know  all  is  to  become 
indifferent;  and  it  is  so  easy  to  forgive  when 
one  does  not  care.  Life  may  be  defined  as  the 
presence  of  the  Unknown;  and  every  living 
being  is  simply  the  incarnation  of  a  mystery. 
The  more  life  we  have,  the  more  incompre- 
hensible we  become;  that  is  why  Jesus  was 
misunderstood  and  crucified. 


The  Deeper  Faith  13 

IX 

Perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  there 
is  in  each  one  of  us  something  which  God 
Himself  does  not  understand.  Otherwise 
how  could  He  love  us  as  He  surely  does?  If 
man  yearns  with  all  his  heart  to  understand 
God,  it  is  not  at  all  impossible  that  God  may 
be  yearning  no  less  fervently  to  understand 
man.  Perhaps  this  mutual  yearning  con- 
stitutes what  we  call  prayer.  And  since  God 
and  man  are  both  infinite  there  is  no  danger 
that  they  will  ever  reach  that  complete  mu- 
tual imderstanding  which  means  the  death  of 
love. 


But  if  we  love  only  the  Unknown  why  do 
we  strive  so  mightily  after  knowledge?  In 
our  quest  of  knowledge  are  we  not  disobedient 
to  the  voice  of  love?  Should  we  not  rather 
take  ignorance  as  our  ideal?  Not  so.  Only 
through  knowledge  do  we  enter  into  relation 


14  The  Deeper  Faith 

with  the  Unknown.  He  who  knows  nothing 
is  ignorant  even  of  the  existence  of  the  Un- 
known. On  the  other  hand,  every  new  truth 
is  a  window  opening  upon  the  infinite  beyond. 
The  realm  of  the  Unknown  is  so  constituted 
that  the  more  of  it  man  conquers  and  subdues 
to  his  service  the  more  remains  to  be  con- 
quered. For  every  apple  we  pluck  from  the 
tree  of  knowledge  there  immediately  grow 
two  others. 

Men  are  to  be  judged  according  to  their 
relatively  greater  or  less  appreciation  of  this 
truth.  Some  there  are  who  have  filled  their 
days  to  overflowing  with  its  smiles  and  fra- 
grance, to  whom  every  moment  is  an  awful 
moment.  These  are  the  mystics  or  divine 
lovers. 


Humanity  may  be  divided  into  two  great 
classes :  those  who  pray  to  live ;  and  those  who 
live  to  pray.  It  is  to  the  second  class  that 
belong  the  saints  and  mystics  whose  lives  are 


The  Deeper  Faith  15 

torches  kindled  at  the  altar  of  love  to  light 
men  through  the  caverns  of  doubt  and  the 
valley  of  the  shadow  into  the  splendor  of 
God's  eternal  presence.  These  are  they  who, 
beholding  all  the  joys  which  earth  can  offer, 
count  them  as  nothing  when  compared  to  the 
ecstasy  of  spiritual  union  with  the  Beauty 
that  is  beyond  the  stars.  They  come  to  God 
not  in  the  fond  hope  that  in  so  doing  they 
shall  escape  misfortune,  defeat,  and  pain,  and 
whatever  other  ills  the  flesh  is  heir  to,  but  as 
to  a  Friend  whose  love  more  than  compen- 
sates for  all  the  suffering  which  existence 
upon  this  earth  inevitably  entails  upon  every 
son  of  man.  They  know  that  in  the  world 
they  shall  have  tribulation,  but  they  know 
also  that  divine  peace  has  overcome  the  world. 
Far  from  praying  that  they  be  released  from 
the  bonds  of  pain,  their  only  petition  is  that 
they  may  be  allowed  to  suffer  with  their 
Master ;  that  they  may  have  the  courage  and 
the  strength  to  take  up  their  cross  and  follow 
him.  And  if  the  cross  be  not  sent  them  from 
on  high  they  hew  it  from  the  wormwood  of 


i6  The  Deeper  Faith 

their  consequent  grief.  They  inflict  needless 
suffering  on  themselves;  since  love  must 
suffer  for  the  beloved  or  die.  And  they  ask 
of  God  no  reward  but  the  joy  of  His  presence, 
and  the  light  of  His  countenance.  ' '  Well  hast 
thou  written  of  me,  Thomas,"  spake  to  the  an- 
gelic doctor  the  voice  from  the  crucifix,  "what 
reward  wouldst  thou  have  ? ' '  And  swift  came 
back  the  answer :  ' '  None  other  than  thyself, 
Lord." 


xn 

It  is  scarcely  to  be  denied  that  the  religious 
attitude  is  not  confined  to  religion.  We  are 
all  religious  about  something  in  life ;  for  to  be 
religious  about  an  object  is  simply  to  treat 
that  object  as  the  ultimate  good  to  the  attain- 
ment of  which  every  other  desire  is  to  be 
subordinated.  Some  of  us  have  a  religion  of 
money;  others  of  fame  and  power;  others  of 
art;  others  still  of  morality.  May  we  not  say 
that  the  mystic  is  unique  in  that  he  is  religious 
about  God  ?    To  be  at  one  with  God,  that  is. 


The  Deeper  Faith  17 

ideally  at  least,  the  motive  of  his  every 
thought  and  deed.  Even  morality  is  but  the 
means  of  a  closer  union  with  the  Eternal; 
the  good  is  the  unblemished  marble  from 
which  are  hewn  the  steps  that  lead  to  the 
throne  of  the  Spirit,  We  must  climb  the 
steps,  but  only  as  the  preliminary  to  seeing 
God  face  to  face.  For  contemplation  is  the 
highest  form  of  activity;  and  the  hour  of 
prayer  more  to  be  honored  than  the  day  of 
labor.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  Catholic 
Church  ranks  the  passive  virtues  above  the 
active.  She  teaches  her  children  to  work 
better  that  they  may  pray  better;  and  all  the 
other  activities  of  the  Catholic  life  are  by  her 
directed  to  adoration  as  a  final  end. 


XIII 

This  is  the  distinction  between  supersti- 
tion and  true  religion:  that  whereas  the 
former  seeks  to  enlist  the  aid  of  supernatural 
agencies  in  man's  behalf  in  his  struggle  to 


i8  The  Deeper  Faith 

survive,  the  latter  raises  man  himself  above 
the  consideration  of  his  personal  welfare  into 
the  shining  realm  of  spiritual  values  where 
abides  the  peace  that  passeth  human  under- 
standing. The  one  degrades  the  gods  into 
hirelings  of  man's  pleasure,  making  them  sub- 
servient to  his  cupidity  and  lust  for  power; 
the  other,  crushing  every  selfish  desire,  trans- 
forms man  into  the  son  of  God,  an  inheritor 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 


XIV 

No  man  may  count  himself  free  of  super- 
stitition  who  has  not  fully  accepted  the  truth 
that  "it  is  only  when  the  soul  is  simply  up- 
lifted on  high  that  prayer  can  be  beautiful." 
Conversely,  to  make  that  truth  one's  own, 
to  try  the  virtue  of  one's  prayer  by  the  fire  of 
an  ideal  so  pure,  is  to  rise  above  the  dust  and 
turmoil  of  earthly  living,  and  to  find  the  peace 
of  home  in  that  super-personal  heaven  where 
alone  the  bird  of  human  happiness  sings,  and 


The  Deeper  Faith  19 

nests,  and  multiplies.  It  is  to  be  loosed  from 
the  bonds  of  nameless  fears,  the  haggard  off- 
spring of  superstition.  It  is  to  declare  truce 
between  those  ancient  enemies,  science  and 
religion;  to  evaluate  each  in  the  light  of  the 
whole  of  existence;  to  recognize,  in  science 
the  mistress  of  earth,  in  religion  the  scaler  of 
the  skies.  Finally,  it  is  to  feel  the  discords 
of  being  resolve  into  exquisite  harmonies,  to 
hear  in  the  hush  of  the  daybreak  the  morning 
stars  singing  together. 


XV 

There  are  some  people  who  assert  that 
they  never  pray ;  and  it  is  among  these  people 
that  one  frequently  finds  many  of  the  nobler 
forms  of  prayer  most  highly  developed.  I 
have  come  to  believe  that  the  artist  in  the 
hour  of  completing  his  masterpiece,  the 
mother  pressing  her  new-born  baby  to  her 
heart  with  sobs  of  joy,  the  lover  looking  si- 
lently into  the  eyes  of  his  beloved,  two  friends 


20  The  Deeper  Faith 

clasping  hands  after  a  long  absence — I  have 
come  to  believe  that  all  these,  and  many- 
more,  do  indeed  utter  prayers  as  beautiful  as 
any  which  have  sprung  from  the  devotions  of 
the  mystic  and  the  saint.  For  even  as  that  is 
no  prayer  which  does  not  lift  the  soul  above 
the  consideration  of  its  own  welfare,  so  con- 
versely every  form  of  adoration  which  induces 
self-forgetfulness  contains  the  elements  of 
true  prayer.  Since  there  is  nothing  above  us 
but  God,  to  be  lifted  above  oneself  is  always 
in  some  measure  to  be  lifted  into  God,  and  to 
forget  oneself  is  to  remember  Him.  Thus  it 
happens  that  many  who  do  not  know  Him 
with  their  conscious  minds,  worship  Him 
unconsciously  in  the  works  of  His  creation. 
And  perhaps  is  this  the  best  and  surest  way  of 
worshiping  Him,  the  one  least  likely  to  mis- 
lead us  into  the  penumbra  of  superstition. 
It  is  not  easy  to  mistake  a  sunset,  a  dog,  or 
even  a  man,  for  God ;  it  is  far  easier  to  accept 
the  image  of  the  Eternal  in  our  minds  for  the 
transcendent  Reality  it  vainly  strives  ade- 
quately to  express. 


The  Deeper  Faith  21 

XVI 

There  is  in  the  lowest  being  wearing  human 
shape,  in  the  criminal,  the  drunkard,  the 
prostitute,  and  nameless  creatures  infinitely 
beneath  these — there  is  in  each  one  something 
higher  than  our  highest  conception  of  God. 
And  with  this  Something  every  true  prayer 
brings  us  into  communion.  It  is  "the  Un- 
seen behind  the  Seen;  the  Unknown  behind 
the  Observed."  Jesus,  dogmatizes  the  ra- 
tionalist, Jesus  was  after  all  a  mere  man. 
Let  us  not  tremble  at  the  insinuation;  it  is 
not  true.  No  man  is  a  mere  man — not  Jesus 
nor  another. 

XVII 

This,  I  suppose,  is  the  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity, as  it  is  of  all  true  religion ;  that  things 
are  more  than  they  seem,  and  that  about 
every  human  head  there  is  a  halo,  a  reflection 
of  the  central  Light, — had  we  but  eyes  to 
see !    But  we  are  blind ;  we  see  only  a  moun- 


22  The  Deeper  Faith 

tain,  a  star,  a  man,  not  the  glory  they  were 
intended  to  reveal.  Too  often  it  is  with  us 
as  it  was  with  Hellriegel  in  Und  Pippa  Tanzt; 
we  must  be  blinded  to  the  beauty  of  the 
material  world  before  we  can  see  the  palace  of 
the  Spirit  and  "the  great,  golden  steps" 
leading  thereto. 

And  yet  there  is  surely  for  each  of  us,  some- 
where in  this  narrow  little  world  of  ours,  a 
holy  place,  a  shrine  made  glad  with  flowers, 
where  we  can  bow  the  knee  and  beautifully 
adore.  For  each  of  us  there  exists  a  threshold 
which  we  dare  not  cross  except  we  loose  the 
sandals  from  our  feet.  Perhaps  it  is  more 
often  the  threshold  of  a  heart  than  of  a  church ; 
perhaps  it  is  rather  in  the  kiss  of  the  beloved 
than  in  the  absolution  of  the  priest  that  God's 
forgiveness  is  poured  out  upon  us.  In  either 
case  the  simplest,  most  commonplace  word 
we  utter  in  the  shadow  of  the  sanctuary  is  in 
reality  a  prayer,  beautiful  and  pure.  Brother, 
go  thou  into  thy  temple,  and  I  will  go  into 
mine;  and  though  thine  be  built  of  precious 
stone  and  costly  metal,  and  mine  of  the  in- 


The  Deeper  Faith  23 

nocent  laughter  of  a  little  child  and  the  sacred 
depths  of  his  mother's  soul,  yet  will  our 
prayers  be  common  prayer.  We  shall  be 
nearer  one  another  than  if  we  were  kneeling 
side  by  side  at  the  altar  of  a  Church  to  which 
we  were  both  strangers.  Our  prayers  shall 
meet  before  the  throne  of  God,  and  know  each 
other,  and  kiss,  and  bow  hand  in  hand  before 
the  Father. 


XVIII 

It  does  not  matter  to  whom  we  pray,  nor 
what  words  we  use;  what  matters  is  the  mo- 
tive. The  peasant  woman  whose  worship  of 
the  Blessed  Virgin  is,  in  part  at  least,  the  ex- 
pression of  sincere  admiration  for  the  divine 
purity  of  the  maiden  called  Mary,  is  far  less 
superstitious  than  the  rationalizing  Protes- 
tant philosopher  who,  scorning  intermediaries, 
petitions  God  the  Father  for  success  in  the 
daily  affairs  of  life. 

There  is  finally  but  one  form  of  idolatry: 
that  which  makes  of  man's  intercourse  with 


24  The  Deeper  Faith 

the  divine  a  means  rather  than  an  end.  All 
sincere  worship,  even  if  it  be  but  the  worship 
of  a  god  of  stone,  is  accepted  of  the  Spirit. 


XIX 

It  may  be  that  we  are  moving  toward 
unity  in  religion ;  but  it  is  surely  not  the  unity 
of  explicit  agreement.  It  is  unity  in  diversity ; 
the  unity  which  is  always  present  when  two 
or  three  seekers  after  truth  are  gathered  to- 
gether in  a  spirit  of  perfect  tolerance. 

The  old  phrases,  the  ancient  formulas, 
which  have  so  long  and  faithfully  served  the 
spiritual  interests  of  the  mass  of  humanity, 
are  proving  less  and  less  efficient.  They  are 
loyal  servants,  grown  feeble  with  age,  whose 
willing  feet  are  no  longer  able  to  bear  them  on 
their  master's  errands.  So  long  as  man  de- 
sires it  so  long  will  they  strive  to  do  his  bid- 
ding ;  even  though  many,  unable  to  reach  their 
destination,  stagger  and  fall  exhausted  by  the 
wayside.    Were  it  not  better  to  retire  them 


The  Deeper  Faith  25 

from  service?  A  new  generation  is  at  hand; 
let  us  welcome  them,  unafraid.  See,  there 
are  many — enough  for  all.  And  they  are 
stronger  and  swifter  than  the  old. 


XX 

Truly  the  time  seems  at  hand  when  each  of 
us  must  give  vent  to  the  insatiable  mysticism 
within  him  in  words  of  his  own  choosing. 
Some  also  there  will  be  who  will  find  words 
themselves  inadequate,  and  who  will  embody 
the  ineffable  longing  of  their  souls  in  a  kiss  or 
a  silent  tear.  And  every  kiss  that  is  more 
than  passion,  and  every  tear  that  is  other  than 
self-pity,  is  a  true  prayer.  Was  it  not,  ac- 
cording to  the  legend — and  the  legends  are 
the  great  truths  gleaned  from  the  facts  of 
history — was  it  not  by  a  kiss  that  the  Virgin 
Mary,  whom  we  may  well  call  the  spirit  of 
prayer  incarnate,  was  immaculately  con- 
ceived? And  every  child  is  potentially  a 
prayer  incarnate — even  the  children  of  the 
imagination  that  exist  only  in  our  souls. 


26  The  Deeper  Faith 

XXI 

One  summer  evening  I  was  walking  along 
the  shore  of  the  Atlantic.  The  great  moon 
was  rising  from  the  waters,  and  as  she  began 
her  majestical  ascent  she  deigned  to  send  a 
greeting  to  me,  lonely  wanderer  on  the  shores 
of  earth — a  single  silver  ray  that  floated  on 
the  dark  waves  like  a  fairy  ladder  woven  of 
the  locks  of  naiads  and  sea  maidens.  I 
wandered  on;  and  still  the  ladder  followed 
me;  up  and  down,  backward  and  forward,  I 
could  not  escape  its  insistent,  luring  glory. 
And  it  came  to  me  that  for  every  human  being 
there  is  a  ladder  to  the  moon ;  though  all  are 
hidden  from  my  sight  save  this  which  gracious 
heaven  has  given  to  be  mine.  But  in  the  sky 
the  ladders  melt  into  a  perfect  orb. 


XXII 

We  all,  like  Cyrano,  are  homesick  for  the 
moon.  Earth  with  its  glories  that  endure  for 
a  day  can  never  satisfy  us,  lonely  exiles  from 


The  Deeper  Faith  27 

the  kingdom  of  the  Eternal.  All  the  fruits 
of  the  garden  of  pleasure  will  not  still  the 
hunger  of  the  soul.  In  vain  have  we  striven 
to  drown  the  still,  small  voice  of  the  Spirit  in 
the  roar  of  the  whirling  torrents  of  the  active 
life.  In  vain  have  we  wrested  from  the  earth 
the  hidden  treasures  of  her  wealth;  in  vain 
have  we  bridled  the  forces  of  nature  and  made 
them  obedient  to  our  desires;  in  vain  all  our 
industrial  enterprise,  our  material  success. 
In  the  twilight  hour  of  silence  and  rest  come 
the  words  of  our  condemnation:  "To  be  is 
more  than  to  do — and  does  more." 


XXIII 

As  a  people  we  have  chosen  prosperity  as 
our  ideal;  and  by  thrift  and  industry,  the 
virtues  which  man  shares  with  the  ant  and 
the  bee,  we  have  in  large  measure  attained 
the  desired  ends.  We  are  prosperous,  we  are 
successful.  And  what,  in  effect,  has  pros- 
perity brought  us?    Greater  happiness?    Is 


28  The  Deeper  Faith 

the  American  millionaire  happier  than  the  Ital- 
ian peasant?  Has  he  attained  a  deeper,  surer 
peace  of  soul  ?  Does  he  offer  greater  reverence 
to  the  trinity  of  goodness,  beauty,  and  truth? 
I  wonder  if  it  is  not  high  time  that  we 
closed  our  Franklins  and  opened  our  Emer- 
sons;  that  we  turned  from  the  multitudinous 
volumes  on  how  to  succeed  with  which  our 
bookshelves  are  laden  to  the  rare  master- 
pieces of  literature,  which  teach  us  how  to 
fail.  It  is  so  much  easier  to  succeed  than  to 
fail !  And  the  time  cries  aloud  for  men  with 
the  courage  to  snap  their  fingers  in  the  face 
of  fortune,  and  to  embrace  poverty  and  pain, 
and  the  contempt  of  their  fellowmen,  for  a 
dream's  sake  and  the  love  of  their  persecutors. 

XXIV 

Nature  is  one  great  struggle,  the  blunder- 
ing incarnation  of  the  will  to  live;  and  the 
natural  man  is  still  in  all  his  acts  under  the 
spell  of  the  domineering  mistress.  To  free 
him  from  that  anachronistic  spell  is  the  pur- 


The  Deeper  Faith  29 

pose  of  all  true  religion.  This  alone  is  re- 
demption; this  is  joy;  to  be  able  to  say,  "I 
have  done  with  the  struggle  for  mere  exist- 
ence; I  care  not  to  live,  but  only  to  Hve  well; 
beyond  all  change  is  that  which  abides,  and 
that  alone  is  Reality  to  me." 

But  how  far  from  this  spirit  of  other- 
worldliness  have  not  our  modern  religions 
wandered!  Those  who  should  be  spiritual 
leaders  have  grown  impatient ;  they  have 
come  down  from  the  lonely  peaks,  from  the 
rarefied  atmosphere  of  the  ideal,  to  make 
truce  with  the  unaspiring  multitude  in  the 
valleys.  They  have  come  down;  and  they 
have  left  the  ancient  beacon  lights  to  be 
extinguished.  They  waited  so  long  for  hu- 
manity to  mount  to  them!  Nevertheless 
they  should  have  remained  on  the  heights. 
They  were  nearer  the  stars. 

XXV 

And  yet,  though  few  in  number,  they  are 
with  us  to-day,  as  they  always  have  been 


30  The  Deeper  Faith 

with  us — the  saints  and  the  martyrs.  Si- 
lently, without  ostentation,  they  pursue  the 
path  of  renunciation,  and  we  are  scarcely 
conscious  of  their  presence  until  they  are 
taken  from  us.  Then,  indeed,  it  seems  that  a 
certain  glory  has  passed  from  the  earth;  and 
we  cannot  understand  how  the  departure  of 
one  whom  the  world  long  ago  proclaimed  a 
failure  could  affect  us  so  deeply.  Is  it  per- 
haps that  the  useless  things  are  the  most 
divine?  Or  that  greater  than  the  man  who 
teaches  us  how  to  use  the  resources  of  the 
world  and  nature  for  our  aggrandizement  is 
he  who  proves  to  us  of  how  little  value  they 
are  in  solving  the  problems  of  human  exist- 
ence? It  may  be  indeed  that  the  man  who 
demonstrates  to  us  that  we  can  attain  the 
highest  happiness  without  wealth  is  a  greater 
genius  than  the  inventor  of  innumerable 
machines  for  the  production  of  wealth;  and 
that  in  the  firmament  of  human  greatness  the 
star  of  Emerson  outshines  that  of  Edison. 

Socrates,  Jesus,  Saint  Francis,  Giordano 
Bruno,  Karl  Marx — the  great  failures!    It  is 


The  Deeper  Faith  31 

to  them  that  humanity  builds  its  loftiest 
monuments  in  marble  and  song ! 


XXVI 

Lord,  grant  us  the  will  to  fail !  Be  that  our 
morning,  and  our  evening,  prayer.  Grant  us 
to  be  accounted  knaves,  so  but  Thy  Goodness 
be  brought  a  little  nearer  earth;  grant  us  to 
be  accounted  fools,  so  but  Thy  wisdom  find  a 
haven  in  men's  hearts;  grant  us  to  be  ac- 
counted outcasts,  so  but  Thy  beauty  brighten 
the  days  of  the  humble ;  grant  us  to  suffer  all 
things  and  to  die,  so  but  Thy  kingdom  come. 


XXVII 

The  will  to  fail — is  it  not  after  all  but 
another  name  for  love?  And  in  using  the 
word  love  I  am  thinking  not  only  of  that 
larger,  cosmic  emotion  which  teaches  us  to 
stretch  out  our  arms  to  the  universe  to  em- 


32  The  Deeper  Faith 

brace  it,  but  also  of  that  individualized,  per- 
sonal affection  to  which  we  turn  for  comfort 
in  the  night  of  discouragement  when  the 
stars  seem  more  than  usually  remote.  Surely 
there  were  hours  in  the  public  career  of  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  when  even  the  inveterate  con- 
sciousness of  his  exalted  mission  would  have 
proved  insufficient  protection  against  the 
barbed  shafts  of  multitudinous  indifference 
and  hate,  without  the  warm,  fragrant  smiles 
and  thrilling  handclasps  of  Peter  and  John 
and  Mary  of  Magdala.  And  even  at  the  last 
when,  apparently  deserted  by  all  his  followers, 
he  was  left  alone  with  God  and  his  own  soul, 
perhaps  it  was  the  memory  of  one  supremely 
glorious  Sabbath  on  which  he  walked  amid 
the  yellow  fields  of  ripening  corn  with  the 
disciples  whom  he  loved,  and  the  sun  shone 
as  never  before,  and  the  birds  sang  to  the 
listening  heart, — perhaps  it  was  some  such 
memory  as  much  as  the  expectation  of  ap- 
proaching triumph  in  heaven,  that  saved  from 
surrender  his  strained  and  staggering  will. 
In  that  wonderftd  silence  before  Caiaphas,  the 


The  Deeper  Faith  33 

most  eloquent  silence  in  the  world's  history, 
who  shall  say  that  it  was  not  the  remembered 
warmth  of  a  mother's  kisses  on  his  boyhood 
lips  that  kept  those  lips  inviolate  from  the 
staining  words  of  anger  or  reproach! 


XXVIII 

Somewhere  in  one  of  Ellen  Key's  remark- 
able books  there  occurs  a  lengthy  discussion 
of  that  universal,  all-embracing  love  which 
is  the  ideal  and  the  way  of  Buddhism  and  of 
Christianity.  Ellen  Key  finds  such  a  love 
impracticable,  and  in  any  case  undesirable, 
since  its  triumph  in  the  hearts  of  men  would 
in  her  opinion  spell  the  destruction  of  that 
individualized,  personal,  affection  which  is 
indeed  the  very  crown  of  human  life.  Is  it 
not  better,  she  seems  to  ask  us,  to  love  one 
than  all? — impl3ring  by  the  query  that  the 
two  forms  of  love,  the  universal  and  the  in- 
dividual, are  mutually  exclusive.  Nay,  the 
very  nature  of  love  itself  makes  any  command 


34  The  Deeper  Faith 

to  love  all  men  indiscriminately  meaningless 
and  absurd.  Love  is  an  instinctive  choosing 
of  one  from  among  many ;  and  to  attempt  to 
spread  it  over  the  many  is  simply  to  dilute 
it  into  good-natured  indifference.  Further- 
more, love  is  based  upon  contrast;  to  love 
certain  people  is  to  hate  others. 

Such  is  the  argument;  and  it  may  be 
that  it  has  sufficient  plausibility  to  de- 
ceive the  more  casual  reader,  even  though 
it  is  based  upon  a  fallacy  that  must  be 
quite  obvious  to  the  thoughtful  critic.  I 
mean  the  fallacy  of  attempting  to  measure 
the  possibilities  of  so  infinite  a  spiritual  force 
as  love  by  the  inconsequent  deductions  of 
logic. 

For  there  is  no  limit  to  be  set  to  the  possible 
development  of  love;  its  future  is  as  un- 
bounded as  that  of  the  universe  itself;  and 
the  higher  the  starting  point  the  nearer 
heaven  shall  we  be  at  the  sunset  hour.  Let  us 
begin  with  the  universal  love  of  humanity, 
the  charity  of  Saint  Paul.  Is  it  impossible  to 
build  beyond  that?   By  no  means.    Universal 


The  Deeper  Faith  35 

charity  is  the  foundation  upon  which  is  to  be 
built  the  glorious  superstructure  of  individual 
affection;  and  the  firmer  and  broader  the 
foundation  the  more  enduring  will  be  the 
superstructure.  If  I  love  all  men  as  brothers 
I  shall  love  my  brother  with  more  than  a 
brother's  affection.  If  I  learn  to  honor  and 
respect  all  women,  even  the  fallen  and  de- 
graded, by  so  much  shall  I  increase  the  honor 
and  respect  which  I  cherish  for  my  mother, 
my  sister,  my  wife.  There  is  no  antithesis 
between  universal  and  individual  love;  on 
the  contrary,  they  rise  and  fall  together.  The 
nobler  our  love  for  all  humanity  becomes,  the 
nobler  becomes  likewise  our  love  for  the  few 
whom  we  call  our  friends.  Thus  it  was  that 
Jesus,  who  loved  humanity  with  a  love  so 
profound  and  all-consuming  that  after  nine- 
teen centuries  it  shines  on  as  the  light 
of  the  world  with  undiminished  intensity 
and  grandeur,  loved  Lazarus  and  Mary 
and  John  with  an  individualized  affection 
no  less  exceptionally  beautiful  and  en- 
during. 


36  The  Deeper  Faith 

XXIX 

He  who  would  increase  his  love  for  the 
noble  can  best  accomplish  that  purpose  by 
learning  to  love  the  ignoble.  Try  to  admire 
the  sinner  if  you  would  broaden  and  beautify 
your  worship  of  the  saint.  The  problem  of 
enriching  the  life  of  the  soul  is  the  problem  of 
finding  God  in  the  lowest.  When  you  have 
discovered  the  divinity  that  hides  in  the  heart 
of  a  rose  do  you  think  that  you  are  less  likely 
to  see  God  in  the  eyes  of  a  friend  ?  Do  you 
hesitate  to  love  the  Magdalene  lest  in  so  doing 
you  make  less  beautiful  your  worship  of  the 
Virgin  Mary?  It  is  a  vain  and  foolish  fear; 
for  there  is  no  love  which  does  not  render  the 
heart  more  capable  of  beautiful  worship. 


XXX 

It  may  be  that  contrast  is  of  the  essence  of 
love ;  but  it  is  not  the  contrast  between  love 
and  hate,  it  is  at  most  the  contrast  between 
love  and  love.    In  the  heart  of  the  mystic 


The  Deeper  Faith  37 

there  is  no  room  for  hate.  He  does  not  hate 
the  sinner  for  he  sees  in  him  an  undeveloped 
saint ;  he  does  not  hate  the  evil,  for  it  is  just 
good  in  the  making. 


XXXI 

Of  course  in  all  this  I  am  thinking  of  an 
idealized  personal  affection  far  removed  from 
the  selfish  passion  which  so  often  to-day 
passes  current  as  love  in  the  sexes.  "  Is  it  not 
strange,"  said  a  friend  to  me  not  long  ago, 
"is  it  not  strange  that  so  often  as  a  man  and 
a  woman  learn  to  love  each  other  they  be- 
come daily  more  self -centered  and  indifferent 
to  others?  They  seem  to  lose  all  sense  of 
obligation  to  parents,  to  friends,  to  the  suffer- 
ing, struggling  world  of  men,  and  to  think 
only  of  the  attainment  of  their  desire  in 
mutual  exclusive  possession."  It  is  not 
strange  when  one  considers  how  important  a 
part  selfish  passion  still  plays  in  the  love  of 
man  and  woman  for  each  other.  For  this  is 
the  difference  between  passion  and  love,  that 


38  The  Deeper  Faith 

the  former  weakens  the  sentiment  of  uni- 
versal charity  in  the  human  heart,  the  latter 
strengthens  it.  He  who  truly  loves  a  woman 
will  love  all  women  for  her  sweet  sake;  yes, 
all  life  will  seem  sacred  to  him  because  she 
has  smiled  upon  it.  He  will  find  new  wonder 
in.  the  sunset  and  a  strange  melody  in  the 
running  brook.  The  stars  will  shine  with  an 
unforeseen  tenderness,  and  the  children  open 
their  hearts  to  reveal  secret  treasures  of  good- 
ness and  beauty.  And  all  this  independent  of 
whether  his  beloved  returns  his  affection,  or 
not.  But  he  whose  love  is  just  passion  will  be 
blinded  to  all  the  splendors  of  God's  universe, 
and  see  only  the  one  woman  for  the  posses- 
sion of  whom  he  will  fight  as  a  beast  for  its 
prey,  selfishly,  without  pity.  And  should  he 
fail  to  win  her,  then  will  life  itself  lose  all 
meaning  for  him. 

xxxn 

"It  seems  to  me,"  said  one  day  a  woman 
who  is  of  the  pure  in  heart  that  have  seen 


The  Deeper  Faith  39 

God,  "that  the  tragedy  of  many  marriages 
arises  from  the  fact  that  whereas  a  woman's 
love  grows  ever  stronger  and  more  wonderful, 
a  man's  love  too  often  ceases  to  develop  after 
marriage,  or  even  diminishes  and  dies  away, 
as  a  tide  that  has  reached  its  flood."  It  is 
because  woman's  love  is  usually  built  upon  a 
surer  foundation,  a  broader  spirit  of  charity, 
an  instinctive  understanding  of  sorrow.  So 
it  happens  that  a  woman's  love  is  seldom  an 
unhappy  love,  for  whether  or  not  she  pos- 
sesses the  man  she  loves,  her  love  itself  will  be 
a  light  and  a  comfort  to  her.  It  will  glorify  all 
her  life.  This  is  doubtless  what  Byron  meant 
when  he  said  that  love  was  woman's  whole 
existence.  It  is  not  that  she  has  greater  need  of 
the  man  than  he  of  her,  but  that  she  lives  more 
constantly  in  the  presence  of  her  love.  She 
takes  it  with  her  to  her  daily  tasks  and  allows 
its  splendor  to  transfigure  all  the  little  relation- 
ships of  common  life.  Her  love  becomes  so 
great  and  pure  that  it  overflows  the  capacity 
of  the  man  she  loves,  and  she  stretches  out 
her  arms  to  the  whole  universe  to  embrace  it. 


40  The  Deeper  Faith 

XXXIII 

In  that  splendid  epic  of  modem  American 
life  and  love,  Robert  Herrick's  Together,  there 
is  portrayed  a  woman  in  whose  heart  bums 
the  fire  of  the  highest  love.  Margaret  and 
Robert,  predestined  lovers,  have  snatched 
from  fate  a  few  days'  supreme  happiness,  but 
are  now  forced  to  part,  each  to  return  to  the 
path  of  stern  and  unrelenting  duty.  And 
the  woman  speaks:  **....  It  can  never 
be  as  it  was  before  for  you  or  me.  We  shall 
carry  away  something  from  our  feast  to  feed 
on  all  our  lives.  We  shall  have  enough  to 
give  others.  Love  makes  you  rich — so  rich! 
We  must  give  it  away  all  our  lives.  We  shall, 
dearest,  never  fear."  And  again:  "My 
children,  my  children,"  she  murmured,  "I 
love  them  more — I  can  do  for  them  more. 
And  for  dear  Mother  Pole — and  even  for  him. 
I  shall  be  gentler — I  shall  understand.  .  .  . 
Love  was  set  before  me.  I  have  taken  it,  and 
it  has  made  me  strong.  I  will  be  glad  and  love 
the  world,  all  of  it,  for  your  sake,  because  you 


The  Deeper  Faith  41 

have  blessed  me.   .    .    .     Ours  is  not  the  fire 
that  turns  inward  and  feeds  upon  itself." 

"  Love  makes  you  rich — so  rich !  We  must 
give  it  away  all  our  lives."  So  speaks  the 
highest  love,  burning  away  forever  the  false 
antithesis  between  individual  and  universal, 
and  rising  through  the  passionate  yearning 
for  at-onement  with  the  beloved  to  the 
mysticial  desire  for  union  with  the  Spirit  in 
all  created  things. 


XXXIV 

It  is  in  the  realm  of  spiritual  values  that 
every  true  marriage  takes  place,  for  it  is  there 
that  human  souls  approach  nearest  one  an- 
other. It  is  there  that,  lifted  above  ourselves, 
we  are  most  ourselves.  It  is  there  that  the 
pearl  of  purity  which  lies  buried  in  every 
human  heart  is  brought  to  light ;  the  pearl  of 
great  price  which  one  dare  not  cast  before 
swine.  It  is  there,  on  the  heights  of  the  spirit, 
in  the  face  of  God's  heaven,  not  in  the  dark 


42  The  Deeper  Faith 

valley  of  passion,  that  every  child  should  be 
conceived. 


XXXV 

The  period  of  courtship  is  usually  one  of 
pure  idealism;  but  how  often  marriage,  in- 
stead of  being  the  fulfillment  of  love,  spells  its 
destruction !  How  often  beneath  the  words  of 
the  priestly  benediction  lurks  the  unspoken 
venomous  curse  of  fate !  It  seems  indeed  that 
the  physical  element  which  enters  at  marriage 
is  destructive  of  all  but  the  highest  love,  and 
that  the  first  embrace  of  the  bridal  night  will 
prove  disastrous  to  every  affection  that  was 
bom  in  passion.  Let  but  the  suggestion  of 
selfish  indulgence  intrude  itself  and  find  a 
moment's  welcome,  and  immediately  the 
spell  is  broken.  Immediately  the  physical 
loses  its  symbolic,  sacramental  efficacy,  and 
becomes,  instead  of  an  instrument  of  the 
spirit,  a  flaming  barrier  from  which  the  timid 
soul  recoils  in  terror. 


The  Deeper  Faith  43 

It  is  vain  to  prate  of  a  lawful  indulgence  of 
passion ;  since  there  are  no  lawful  indulgences. 
The  physical  for  its  own  sake  is  always  sin; 
and  to  lust  after  one's  own  wife  is  as  bad  as, 
perhaps  worse  than,  to  covet  the  wife  of  one's 
neighbor.  "They  would  have  her  go,"  says 
Guido,  the  husband  of  Monna  Vanna,  "they 
would  have  her  go  and  yield  up  to  him  that 
body  which  no  man  ever  dared  to  think  on 
with  so  much  as  a  passing  breath  of  desire,  so 
virginal  did  it  appear;  from  which  I,  her  hus- 
band, ventured  not  to  draw  the  veils  but  with 
a  charge  to  my  hands,  my  eyes,  to  keep  per- 
fect reverence,  lest  I  should  sully  it  by  one 
ill-governed  thought." 


XXXVI 

There  is  a  kiss  which  blinds  and  degrades; 
it  is  the  kiss  of  passion.  But  there  is  another 
kiss  which  is  just  the  expression  of  the  long- 
ing of  two  personalities  to  become  one;  a  kiss 
which  illumines  life  and  draws  the  soul  nearer 


44  The  Deeper  Faith 

the  invisible  loveliness  which  is  at  the  heart  of 
things.    It  is  the  kiss  of  the  highest  love. 

Again,  and  yet  again!  and  here  and  here. 
Let  me  with  kisses  burn  this  body  away, 
That  our  two  souls  may  dart  together  free. 
I  fret  at  intervention  of  the  flesh, 
And  I  would  clasp  you — you  that  but  inhabit 
This  lovely  house.  ^ 

So  speaks  the  voice  of  the  highest  love,  to 
which  every  desire  has  value  only  as  the  path 
to  something  beyond  itself.  Passion  is  transi- 
tory and  finite;  it  seeks  its  own  satisfaction, 
and  no  sooner  has  it  attained  its  desire  than 
it  begins  to  wane.  It  is  as  a  runner  who, 
breasting  the  tape  victorious,  in  the  moment 
of  triumph  staggers  and  falls  dead.  But  the 
highest  love  is  infinite,  never  finally  satis- 
fied; since  it  seeks  only  to  give  and  still  to 
give,  and  in  giving  grows  stronger  and  more 
beautiful  day  by  day.  This  is  the  love  which 
is  born  in  the  realm  of  spiritual  values.  And 
this  love  is  eternal  and  ever  patient;  fearing 
not  bodily  separation  nor  death;  knowing  not 
jealousy  nor  deceit. 


The  Deeper  Faith  45 

XXXVII 

The  entrance  of  the  intellectual  element 
into  love,  through  the  emancipation  of 
woman,  is  destined  to  play  an  important  part 
in  the  ennobling  of  love  in  the  sexes.  It  is 
not  possible  to  lust  after  a  woman  with  whom 
one  has  shared  the  loftiest  beliefs  of  one's 
heart ;  and  a  degrading  passion  can  exist  only 
between  two  beings  that  have  never  looked 
into  each  other's  soul. 


XXXVIII 

As  long  as  woman  was  intellectually  a 
child,  she  was  content  to  be  loved  as  a  child; 
but  now  that  she  has  been  allowed  to  grow 
into  the  full  stature  of  a  human  being,  now 
that  her  personaUty  has  been  granted  the 
inalienable  privilege  of  self-development, 
she  will  demand  of  love  not  only  spirit- 
ual and  physical,  but  also  intellectual  satis- 
faction. 


46  The  Deeper  Faith 

"First  of  all,"  says  Ibsen's  Nora,  "I  am  a 
human  being  like  you,"  and  in  those  burning 
words  of  sudden,  lightning-Uke  conviction  is 
voiced  the  credo  of  the  modern  woman. 
Deeper  than  masculine  and  feminine  is  the 
human,  and  on  this  common  ground  must 
man  and  woman  meet  if  their  relationship  is 
to  be  beautiful  and  enduring.  The  portal  to 
every  personality  is  the  intellect ;  and  woman, 
as  a  developed  personality,  may  be  ap- 
proached only  through  her  intellect.  Great 
and  pure  thoughts  stand  sentinel  at  the  out- 
posts of  her  soul,  and  if  one  would  gain 
entrance  to  the  inner  sanctuary  one  must 
know  the  passwords.  One  must  be  able  to 
answer  her  questioning  eyes  ere  one  presumes 
to  ask  of  her  the  spiritual  treasures  that  lie 
hidden  in  the  depths  of  her  being.  If  you 
cannot  enter  into  the  thoughts  of,  the  woman 
you  love,  all  your  devotion  and  sacrifice  will 
be  in  vain;  you  will  never  win  her  deepest 
affection.  Once,  when  woman  was  only  feel- 
ing, it  might  have  been  possible ;  but  it  is  no 
longer  so. 


The  Deeper  Faith  47 

XXXIX 

Let  us  not  fear  that  in  becoming  more 
intellectual  love  will  lose  its  emotional  in- 
tensity. There  is  nothing  so  emotional  as 
thought,  and  an  ideal  is  more  ravishing  than 
the  most  beautiful  goddess.  In  this  connec- 
tion one  may  recall  the  anecdote  related  of 
Gounod,  how  one  day,  on  having  the  Coper- 
nican  system  explained  to  him  by  a  friend, 
he  burst  into  tears  and  cried,  "How  beauti- 
ful!" Because  Wagner  was  the  most  intel- 
lectual, he  was  also  the  most  emotional  of 
composers.  In  his  Niebelungen  Ring  he  set 
metaphysics  to  music,  and  produced  a  work 
so  freighted  with  intensity  of  feeUng  that  it 
almost  oversteps  the  boundaries  of  art. 
Beside  this  how  paUid  seem  the  efforts  of  the 
Italian  composers,  dealing  as  they  do  with  the 
petty  passions  of  men  and  women  who  do  not 
understand  life !  Wagner  is  not  content  with 
arousing  our  sympathies  for  this  man  or  that 
woman,  he  wishes  to  make  us  feel  for  the 
common  aspirations  of  all  humanity,  nay,  of 


48  The  Deeper  Faith 

the  whole  universe;  and  as  the  universe 
transcends  the  individual  being  it  contains,  so 
does  Wagner's  sympathy  transcend  that  of  a 
mere  opera  composer.  The  emotion  which 
springs  from  a  great  thought  is  always  more 
profound  than  the  emotion  which  is  simply 
the  reflection  of  a  perceived  emotion  or  the 
answer  to  the  stimulus  of  a  sense  impression. 
Great  as  is  my  admiration  for  the  physical 
beauty  of  the  woman  I  love  it  is  as  nothing 
compared  to  my  admiration  for  the  ideal  of 
beauty  which  she  cherishes  in  her  soul;  nay, 
it  is  primarily  as  an  expression  of  the  inner 
ideal  that  her  physical  loveHness  has  value. 


XL 

Consider,  also,  that  there  is  no  beautiful 
thought  which  does  not  become  more  beauti- 
ful the  moment  it  is  shared  with  a  woman. 
I  bring  to  the  woman  I  love  all  my  purest 
thoughts,  my  most  cherished  dreams;  and 
she  has  no  sooner  smiled  upon  them  than  they 


The  Deeper  Faith  49 

begin  to  shine  with  a  new  radiance.  It 
seems,  indeed,  that  a  woman's  smile  is  like 
the  magic  diamond  in  The  Blue  Bird;  it  makes 
visible  the  essence  of  things,  which  is  Beauty. 
I  never  knew  how  beautiful  were  my  ideals 
until  one  day  I  saw  them  shining  in  the 
depths  of  a  pure  woman's  soul.  Then  indeed 
it  was  revealed  to  me ;  and  I  have  never  since 
doubted  that  the  highest  privilege  a  human 
being  may  possess  is  the  privilege  of  living 
and  dying  for  a  dream. 


XLI 

Once  it  was  deemed  that  true  love  must  be 
unchanging;  now,  however,  we  begin  to  see 
that  the  highest  love  changes  constantly.  It 
gains  in  depth  and  compass  with  the  addition 
of  every  new  ideal.  Day  by  day  it  reveals 
fresh  wonders  to  us;  day  by  day  our  dreams 
become  more  beautiful  as  we  learn  to  share 
them  with  the  being  we  adore ;  day  by  day  our 
love  itself  grows  purer,  since  there  is  nothing 


50  The  Deeper  Faith 

more  fatal  to  unworthy  passion  than  a  com- 
mon fund  of  ideals.  Every  thought  that  you 
share  with  your  beloved  is  a  bond  of  union 
stronger  than  a  thousand  kisses.  Should 
death  separate  you  from  her  to-night  do  you 
think  it  would  be  the  memory  of  an  embrace 
which  would  be  of  greatest  comfort  to  you  in 
your  lonely  life  beyond  the  grave?  Would  it 
not  rather  be  a  beautiful  ideal  which  a  few 
chance  words  of  hers  revealed  to  you  one 
evening  as  you  walked  side  by  side  beneath 
the  stars? 


XLII 

We  hear  much,  in  life  and  in  art,  of  the 
conflict  between  love  and  duty.  How  many 
of  the  great  tragedies  has  not  the  putative 
clash  of  these  two  forces  in  the  hearts  of  men 
and  women  brought  forth?  Corneille,  it 
seems,  could  think  of  nothing  else.  And  yet, 
as  one  attains  a  deeper  insight  into  the  na- 
tures of  love  and  of  duty,  one  realizes  that  any 
real  conflict  between  them  is  impossible,  that 


The  Deeper  Faith  51 

what  seems  so  must  be  illusory,  or  at  most  a 
conflict  between  greater  love  and  less.  If  in 
order  to  possess  the  woman  I  love  I  disobey 
the  clear  dictates  of  conscience,  I  am  sinning 
perhaps  not  so  much  against  duty  as  against 
love.  I  have  made  my  love  less  beautiful 
than  it  might  have  been;  I  have  placed  be- 
tween my  soul  and  the  soul  of  the  woman  I 
adore  the  accusing  body  of  a  slain  ideal. 
There  are  thus  people  who  say  that  they  love 
each  other,  whose  souls  are  in  reality  sepa- 
rated by  an  impassable  field  of  carnage, 
whereon  are  the  mangled  forms  of  dead  and 
dying  dreams  and  aspirations. 


XLIII 

Every  time  I  obey  the  voice  of  duty  I  am 
brought  one  step  nearer  the  woman  whom  I 
love.  It  may  be  that  duty  has  forbidden  me 
ever  to  see  her  again;  it  does  not  matter;  our 
souls  are  approaching  each  other  day  by  day. 
I  know  that  she  is  watching  me  with  the  eyes 


52  The  Deeper  Faith 

of  the  soul;  that  she  sees  every  step,  that  she 
smiles  upon  me  when  I  am  strong,  that  she 
encourages  me  when  I  falter,  that  she  com- 
forts me  and  helps  me  to  rise  when  I  have 
stumbled  and  fallen. 


XLIV 

Have  you  never,  in  an  hour  of  spiritual 
depression,  experienced  a  sudden,  mysterious 
tremor  of  joy  that  stirred  your  torpid  blood 
into  a  new  ecstasy?  You  do  not  know  what 
it  is  nor  why  it  visits  you,  this  healing  ray 
from  an  invisible  sun  of  gladness ;  but  it  may 
be  a  secret  messenger  of  the  Spirit  who  comes 
to  tell  you  that  someone  you  love  has  just 
accomplished  a  noble  act  of  self-sacrifice,  or 
has  given  voice  to  a  divine  truth,  or  has  gazed 
reverently  upon  beauty. 

XLV 

We  hear  it  often  asserted  that  love  justi- 
fies everything,  and  we  are  asked  to  sympa- 


The  Deeper  Faith  53 

thize  with  those  who  for  their  love's  sake  have 
sacrificed  honor,  faith,  ideals.  But  there  is 
only  one  thing  that  love  can  justify,  and  that 
is  goodness.  It  is  the  absence  of  love  that 
excuses,  if  it  does  not  justify,  the  commission 
of  an  evil  deed.  He  who  has  never  known  the 
joy  of  a  supreme  love,  he  is  at  a  disadvantage 
in  his  struggle  to  live  nobly,  purely.  We 
must  judge  him  more  leniently  than  his 
brother  to  whom  has  been  granted  the  un- 
shaken flame  of  the  lamp  of  personal  love  by 
which  to  gmde  his  footsteps  through  the 
DaedaUan  grottoes  of  human  existence.  The 
highest  love  brings  responsibilities,  not  priv- 
ileges ;  and  he  who  truly  loves  knows  himself 
under  special  obligation  to  live  the  faithful 
warrior  of  divine  virtue. 


XLVI 

There  is  no  compelling  reason  why  a  man 
and  a  woman  who  love  each  other  should  live 


54  The  Deeper  Faith 

together.  The  right  to  cohabit  is  dependent 
upon  many  other  considerations  besides  the 
existence  of  a  mutual  affection,  and  it  is  only 
in  heeding  the  injunctions  of  the  social  con- 
science that  love  remains  love.  Physical 
separation  cannot  kill  love;  infideHty  to  the 
ideal  of  duty  can  and  does.  Sometimes  the 
only  way  a  man  and  a  woman  can  remain  true 
to  each  other  is  by  parting. 

This  willingness  to  surrender  the  beloved 
at  the  first  summons  from  the  clarion  voice  of 
duty  is  the  supreme  test  of  the  worth  of  a 
love.  He  who  remains  with  the  woman  he 
adores  after  conscience  has  bade  him  depart, 
is  a  traitor  to  the  highest  love.  If  you  cannot 
live  without  your  beloved,  you  may  be  sure 
that  your  affection  is  still  of  an  inferior 
quality.  If  in  loving  her  you  have  not 
learned  to  love  life  more,  if  the  divinest 
of  passions  have  not  awakened  in  your 
soul  a  realization  of  its  own  powers  of 
blessedness  independent  of  every  external 
support,  then  you  have  not  yet  reached  the 
inner  sanctuary. 


The  Deeper  Faith  55 

XLVII 

He  who  could  not  live  without  God  doss 
not  love  God  as  He  surely  desires  to  be  loved. 
What  he  loves  is  not  God  but  the  sense  of 
personal  security  with  which  the  belief  in  the 
existence  of  God  inspires  him.  Too  often  the 
fear  of  the  misfortunes  which  we  imagine 
would  immediately  overwhelm  us  were  we 
obliged  to  live  without  the  help  of  our  God 
induces  us  to  cling  to  an  outgrown,  unworthy 
conception  of  God;  such  a  conception,  for 
example,  as  that  of  a  God  who  makes  belief 
in  His  existence  requisite  to  man's  salvation; 
since  only  a  God  who  knew  that  His  con- 
tinued existence  was  dependent  on  man's 
belief  in  Him  could  attach  so  much  impor- 
tance to  that  belief. 


XLVIII 

Is  it  not  the  fear  of  never  finding  Truth, 
and  of  the  consequent  dispiriting  sense  of 


56  The  Deeper  Faith 

failure  and  disillusionment,  which  urges  so 
many  philosophers  to  accept  as  ultimate 
Truth  some  meticulous  creation  of  their  over- 
wrought brains?  "Eureka,"  they  cry;  "I 
have  found  it!"  And  the  greater  is  their 
fear  of  being  mistaken  the  louder  do  they 
shout;  as  a  child,  terrified  by  the  darkness, 
tries  to  reassure  itself  by  the  sound  of  its  own 
voice. 

This  is  the  lust  of  the  intellect  which  is  but 
another  name  for  fear;  the  single  deep- 
grounded  selfishness  of  the  human  heart,  the 
essential  egotism  whose  poisonous  tendrils 
are  so  entangled  with  the  roots  of  our  con- 
scious spiritual  life  that  it  sometimes  seems 
as  though  we  could  not  extirpate  the  evil 
without  blighting  the  good,  that  we  must 
allow  wheat  and  tares  to  grow  side  by 
side  unto  some  far-off,  uncertain  harvest. 
Nevertheless  it  is  possible  to  purify  the 
garden  of  life;  as  the  great  and  good 
men  of  all  ages  have  amply  proven.  It 
is  but  necessary  that  we  have  courage  and 
patience. 


The  Deeper  Faith  57 

XLIX 

Let  us  compare  for  a  moment  two  modem 
thinkers  who  illustrate  the  antithesis  between 
love  and  lust  in  the  world  of  philosophy. 

Maeterlinck  is  free  of  lust,  as  of  fear.  He 
is  the  most  chaste  of  modern  -thinkers.  His 
love  of  Truth  is  purged  of  selfish  motives, 
lofty  and  enduring ;  for  he  has  learned  to  live 
without  Truth,  to  clear  his  vision  and  purify 
his  heart,  in  awaiting  the  gift  of  the  gods,  and 
to  find  in  these  very  processes  the  quiet 
strength  of  soul  sufficient  for  a  beautiful  and 
happy  existence. 

There  is  something  majestic  about  Maeter- 
linck's progress  toward  Truth :  he  moves  with 
the  royal  tread  of  one  who  knows  himself 
supreme  ruler  of  the  noblest  of  kingdoms — 
his  own  soul !  Looking  back  over  the  way  he 
has  trodden,  as  indicated  by  the  successive 
works  that  bear  his  name,  one  is  struck  by 
the  absence  of  dust — as  far  as  the  eye  can  see 
the  road  stretches  away  smooth  and  undis- 
turbed.   He  travels  always  on  foot  and  so 


58  The  Deeper  Faith 

quietly  that  he  disturbs  nothing;  even  the 
birds  do  not  cease  singing  at  his  approach. 
There  is  naught  of  interest  on  the  journey 
that  escapes  his  notice,  not  a  flower  whose 
joy  he  has  not  shared;  and  yet,  if  he  does  not 
hurry  neither  does  he  delay,  nor  will  he  think 
of  resting  till  he  has  reached  the  far  horizon. 

Contrast  with  this  the  headlong,  vertigi- 
nous rush  of  Nietzsche's  imagination,  posting 
with  wanton  haste  from  mistress  to  mistress, 
and  embracing  each  new  illusion  with  the 
same  greedy,  relentless  passion,  until  madness 
mercifully  ends  the  pitiful  debauchery  of  a 
gifted  intellect.  Nietzsche  is  the  Don  Juan 
of  modern  philosophers,  Maeterlinck  the 
Saint  Francis  of  Assisi.  And  it  is  to  Saint 
Francis  that  we  go  for  Truth. 


There  is  a  kind  of  slavery  from  the  evil 
influence  of  which  few  indeed  can  boast  ex- 
emption: it  is  the  slavery  to  an  ideal.    And 


The  Deeper  Faith  59 

just  because  an  ideal  is  more  ravishing  than 
the  most  beautiful  of  goddesses  it  is  expedient 
that  we  be  emancipated  from  this  last  form 
of  bondage.  For,  as  history  amply  demon- 
strates, slavery  to  an  ideal  gives  birth  to 
many  of  the  most  despicable  passions  of 
which  human  nature  is  capable,  fanaticism 
and  hatred,  and  their  concomitant  cruelties. 
We  have  but  to  recall  the  religious  persecu- 
tions with  which  the  pages  of  European 
history  are  stained  to  realize  the  dire  and  nec- 
essary outcome  of  the  enslavement  of  the 
human  mind  to  an  ideal — in  this  case  that  of 
theological  conformity.  And  this  dire  out- 
come is  inevitable  however  noble  in  itself  the 
enslaving  ideal  may  be. 

Maeterlinck  desires  to  free  us  from  bond- 
age to  our  ideals.  He  urges  us  to  open  the  win- 
dows of  our  souls  that  the  free  air  of  heaven 
may  sweep  through  them,  making  all  things 
sweet  and  radiant.  He  calls  us  out  of  our- 
selves, out  of  our  dreams  and  aspirations,  to 
breathe  a  while  the  purer  if  rarer  atmosphere 
of  the  Unknown.    He  shows  us  that  our  loft- 


6o  The  Deeper  Faith 

iest  ideals  are  less  lofty  than  eternity,  that 
beyond  Beauty  and  Goodness  and  Truth 
lies  the  mystery  that  transcends  all  things, 
and  that  in  this  mystery  our  souls  may  find 
certain  refuge  when  every  other  source  of 
comfort  seems  to  fail. 


LI 

Does  this  mean  that  in  finding  peace  of 
soul  to  be  independent  of  the  realization  of 
our  ideals  we  shall  love  these  ideals  less,  shall 
strive  less  earnestly  for  their  attainment? 
By  no  means.  I  have  written  all  in  vain  if  I 
have  not  shown  that  freedom  from  slavery 
to  our  ideals  means  before  all  else  freedom  to 
love  them  with  a  love  more  profoimd,  endur- 
ing, and  beautiful — a  love  in  which  there  is  no 
admixture  of  selfish  fear  orf  failure.  We  begin 
now  to  love  them  solely  for  what  they  are  in 
themselves,  and  not  for  any  benefit  which  we 
may  expect  to  receive  from  their  realization. 
We  love  them  although  we  cannot  be  sure 


The  Deeper  Faith  6i 

that  we  shall  ever  attain  them.  ' '  Those  who 
fight  only  for  victory,"  says  George  Tyrrell, 
' '  grow  slack  when  victory  is  hopeless.  Those 
who  fight  for  hate  or  love  will  fight  till  they 
drop."  We  can  lust  after  the  attainable;  but 
we  cannot  lust  after  the  unattainable — we 
can  only  love  it.  Perhaps  it  is  in  the  service 
of  a  God  of  whose  very  existence  we  are  not 
sure  that  our  souls  become  conscious  of  their 
deepest  possibilities,  of  a  nobility  and  beauty 
grounded  in  the  Infinite. 

LII 

As  the  soul  of  man  develops,  the  number  of 
things  which  he  deems  necessary  to  his  wel- 
fare diminishes,  until  finally  the  entire  objec- 
tive universe,  with  all  it  contains  of  wonder 
and  beauty,  is  seen  to  be  after  all  a  luxury. 
To  the  fully  enlightened  man  the  only  neces- 
sity is  his  own  soul.  The  Eastern  mystic's 
contempt  of  the  phenomenal  world  is  perhaps 
simply  the  revolt  of  the  spiritually  minded 
against  every  form  of  waste  and  extravagance 


62  The  Deeper  Faith 

carried  to  its  logical  conclusion.  The  Bud- 
dhist initiate  objects  to  the  world  process  of 
birth,  growth,  and  decay,  because  it  is  un- 
necessary. Since  Brahm  is  eternally,  why 
have  we  need  of  time  and  its  illusions  ? 

We  have  no  need.  But  what  the  Brahmin 
seems  to  forget  (in  theory  if  not  in  practice) 
is  that  the  useless  things  are  the  most  divine. 
It  is  precisely  because  life  is  like  a  play  with- 
out deeper  significance  than  its  own  joyous- 
ness  that  we  can  accept  it  without  injury  to 
our  souls.  But  in  order  to  enter  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  we  must  become  as  children,  who, 
without  overestimating  the  larger  significance 
of  their  activity,  or  constructing  a  cosmic  phi- 
losophy from  the  elements  of  baseball,  take 
endless  dehght  in  playing  the  game  for  its  own 
sake. 

LIII 

One  great  truth,  however,  we  moderns 
have  still  to  learn  from  the  ascetic:  that  the 
only  path  to  the  free  joyousness  of  the  play- 


The  Deeper  Faith  63 

attitude  toward  life  is  the  path  of  renuncia- 
tion. Not  until  we  have  learned  to  live 
without  the  world  should  we  begin  to  enjoy  the 
world.  True  other- worldliness  is  not  hostile 
to  the  natural  joy  of  living;  on  the  contrary 
it  alone  produces  that  inner  freedom  which  is 
the  prerequisite  of  all  innocent  appreciation 
of  the  good  and  fair  things  of  earth.  It  is 
Saint  Francis,  not  Don  Juan,  who  under- 
stands and  loves  the  glad  melody  of  bird  song 
and  the  awful  beauty  of  the  rose  of  dawn. 
Renounce  the  world  in  order  to  enjoy  the 
universe:  you  have  no  sooner  done  so  than 
you  rediscover  the  world  in  its  proper 
place  in  the  cosmic  order.  Thus  only  does 
the  world  become  beautiful  to  the  spirit ;  for 
the  beauty  of  an  object  is  revealed  only  to  the 
heart  that  senses  the  relation  of  the  object 
to  the  Whole. 

LIV 

Let  us  return  now  to  a  consideration  of 
personal  love  and  see  if  these  few  and  neces- 


64  The  Deeper  Faith 

sarily  somewhat  vague  philosophical  reflec- 
tions will  cast  any  new  Ught  on  the  spiritual 
value  of  such  love.  If  in  order  to  enjoy  the 
world  without  endangering  our  inner  freedom 
we  must  be  capable  of  renouncing  the  world, 
this  will  be  no  less  true  if  we  substitute  for 
the  world,  the  people  whom  we  love.  "I 
shall  never  marry,"  said  a  woman  with  pride, 
"I  shall  never  marry  unless  I  meet  a  man 
whom  I  believe  to  be  absolutely  necessary  to 
my  existence."  But  this  is  precisely  the  man 
she  should  under  no  circumstances  marry; 
for  in  marrying  him  she  will  become  not  his 
wife,  but  his  slave.  Not  until  she  knows 
herself  capable  of  living  wisely  and  beautifully 
apart  from  him  should  she  consent  to  live 
with  him. 


LV 

If  there  is  anywhere  in  the  world  a  being 
whose  presence  is  necessary  to  the  peace  of 
your  soul  you  are  as  much  in  a  state  of  bond- 
age as  the  meanest  slave  of  an  oriental  despot. 


The  Deeper  Faith  65 

However,  love  comes  to  free  us,  not  to  en- 
slave us;  and  he  may  not  boast  the  highest 
love  who  does  not  know  the  mystic  joy  of 
solitude.  The  test  of  the  depth  and  value  of 
your  affection  is  not  whether  you  are  happy 
when  you  are  with  your  beloved,  but  whether 
you  are  happy  when  you  are  alone. 


LVI 

There  is  profound  spiritual  significance  in 
the  fact  that  we  reserve  the  glorious  title 
"free  love"  for  that  love  which  is  of  all,  the 
most  in  bondage  to  bhnd  passion.  It  seems 
we  have  not  yet  learned  that  in  disregarding 
the  social  welfare  for  the  sake  of  love  we 
prove,  not  that  our  love  is  free,  but  that  we 
are  slaves. 

LVII 

There  were  two  men  who  loved  a  woman. 
And  when  the  first  man  learned  that  his  love 
was  not  returned,  he  went  out  in  despair,  and 


66  The  Deeper  Faith 

hanged  himself.  But  the  other  said  to  the 
woman :  ' '  Do  you  know  what  I  shall  do  now 
that  I  know  you  do  not  love  me?  I  shall 
think  more  beautiful  thoughts,  I  shall  dream 
more  beautiful  dreams,  I  shall  do  greater 
deeds  because  I  have  known  you.  And  then, 
perhaps  I  shall  some  day  awaken  in  you  the 
love  that  understands.  For  I  begin  to  believe 
that  it  is  my  fault  that  you  do  not  love  me, 
that  it  is  always  our  fault  if  those  about  us 
do  not  love  us  as  we  desire  to  be  loved.  And 
even  if  fate  should  decree  that  I  should  never 
see  you  again,  I  should  still  find  life  sweet; 
I  shall  cling  mightily  to  existence,  for  exist- 
ence would  mean  to  me  before  all  else  the 
thought  of  you." 

Which  of  these  two  men,  therefore,  loved 
with  the  greater  love? 


LVIII 

By  the  gift  of  happiness  which  it  bears  in 
its  arms,  tenderly  as  a  mother  her  babe,  may 


The  Deeper  Faith  67 

we  judge  the  spiritual  value  of  the  love  that 
is  knocking  at  the  door  of  our  hearts.  We 
must  open  only  to  the  goddess  who  ap- 
proaches smiling.  Or  if  there  be  tears  in  her 
eyes  they  must  be  peaceful  tears,  unstained 
by  bitterness  or  regret,  tears  that  reflect  and 
crystally  enhance  the  beauty  of  the  soul  which 
gives  them  birth,  even  as  the  dewdrop  mingles 
in  its  depths  the  azure  of  heaven,  and  the 
softer  blue  of  its  patron  violet,  enriching 
both. 


LIX 

"She  is  capable  of  a  wonderful  happiness," 
wrote  to  me  a  friend  in  reference  to  a  woman 
whom  we  both  loved.  This  was  indeed  high 
praise,  for  it  would  be  difficult  to  conceive 
a  loftier  ideal  for  the  individual  than  this  of 
making  himself  worthy  of  a  wonderful  happi- 
ness. A  truly  sublime  happiness  is  attained 
only  by  the  cherishing  and  developing  of  all 
that  is  purest  and  best  in  the  soul.  It  is  a 
royal  guest  to  whom  one  dare  not  offer  an 


68  The  Deeper  Faith 

unswept  and  ungarnished  chamber  lest  he 
take  offence  and  hurriedly  depart. 

"It  is  happiness  that  ennobles,"  says  Ib- 
sen's Rosmer.  Christianity  has  been  prone 
to  overemphasize  the  value  of  misfortune  and 
suffering  in  the  purification  of  the  soul.  It  is 
not  always  in  the  dark  hours  of  personal  grief 
that  the  surest  faith  in  an  Unseen  Power  is 
born.  It  is  not  always  when  one  is  weary  of 
earth  and  its  passing  pleasures  that  one  ex- 
periences the  prof oundest  yearning  for  heaven 
and  its  divine  peace.  There  is  a  happiness  so 
great  that  it  snaps  the  chains  which  confine 
it  to  earth  and  rises  toward  the  sky  and  the 
Beauty  that  is  beyond  the  stars.  There  are 
times  when  the  soul  is  uplifted  on  the  wings  of 
importunate  ecstasy,  when  nothing  seems  too 
good  to  be  true,  and  one  stretches  out  one's 
arms  to  the  whole  universe  to  embrace  it. 
Perhaps  is  the  faith  in  life  born  of  such  an 
hour  of  sunshine  a  more  beautiful  and 
enduring  thing  than  the  faith  conceived 
and  brought  forth  in  the  night  of  personal 
grief. 


The  Deeper  Faith  69 

I  say  ''personal  grief,"  for  there  is  an  im- 
personal sorrow  which  is  no  less  beneficent 
than  a  wonderful  happiness.  It  seems,  in- 
deed, that  the  nobler  and  loftier  happiness 
and  sorrow  become,  the  nearer  do  they  ap- 
proach each  other;  until  at  last  one  may  no 
longer  distinguish  between  them,  and  it  is 
not  possible  to  say  whether  a  smile  or  a  tear 
is  fraught  with  greater  comfort  to  the  soul. 


LX 

What  is  most  shocking  in  the  spiritual 
condition  of  the  masses  of  men  is  their  in- 
ability to  sympathize  with  a  happiness  that 
is  not  closely  identified  with  their  personal 
welfare.  Their  joys  and  sorrows  are  no 
greater  than  themselves.  In  short,  they  are 
incapable  of  a  wonderful  happiness ;  and  that 
is  the  substance  of  their  condemnation.  This 
is  the  fault  of  the  present  economic  structure 
of  society,  which  encourages  man  to  concern 
himself  primarily  with  his  fate  as  an  in- 


70  The  Deeper  Faith 

dividual,  to  degrade  those  sublime  words, 
happiness  and  unhappiness,  to  the  service  of 
so  petty  a  matter  as  his  personal  fortune. 
There  are,  of  course,  those  who  defend  the 
present  system  of  brute  selfishness  with  the 
specious  plea  that  it  is  in  the  struggle  for 
personal  supremacy  that  man  develops  the 
best  of  his  powers.  But  we  need  not  waste 
words  in  refuting  an  argument  the  mere 
statement  of  which  is  sufficient  to  discredit 
it  in  the  eyes  of  every  unprejudiced  student 
of  life.  Lust  and  greed  and  criminal  hate, 
these  are  the  too  obvious  products  of  man's 
acquiescence  in  that  blind  struggle  for  exist- 
ence which  was  nature's  makeshift  method  of 
progress  before  she  conceived  intelligence  and 
brought  forth  the  free  human  soul.  Those 
who  deny  the  inapplicability  of  a  crude  law 
of  animal  survival  to  man  in  the  fullness 
of  his  divine  stature,  deny  at  once  and 
the  same  time  the  primary  posit  of  every 
true  religion  and  the  collective  testimony 
of  the  noblest  beings  that  have  walked  this 
earth. 


The  Deeper  Faith  71 

LXI 

One  says  truly  that  suffering  purifies  the 
soul;  but  let  us  not  deceive  ourselves,  the 
question  here  is  of  spiritual,  not  of  physical, 
suffering.  It  is  they  that  hunger  and  thirst 
after  righteousness  who  are  blessed.  A  heart 
hungering  for  love,  not  an  empty  stomach, 
is  the  proper  receptacle  for  the  bread  of  life. 
The  fear  of  the  Lord,  not  the  fear  of  starva- 
tion, is  the  beginning  of  wisdom. 


LXII 

Not  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  but  in  the 
struggle  for  life — eternal  life,  is  the  soul  of 
man  made  beautiful.  Was  it  in  the  process  of 
earning  his  daily  bread  that  Shelley  rose  to 
the  sublime  genius  of  Prometheus  ?  Was  it  in 
the  sweat  of  his  brow,  toiling  at  the  bench  of  a 
carpenter,  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  revealed  the 
all-embracing  fire  of  his  love  ?  Or  was  it  rather 
in  the  useless  and  beautiful  tears  which  he  shed 
over  Jerusalem,  the  slayer  of  the  prophets? 


72  The  Deeper  Faith 

LXIII 

The  new  ideal  of  social  justice,  which  al- 
ready to-day  shines  as  a  guiding  star  on  the 
hearts  of  millions  of  awakened  men  and 
women,  aims  at  giving  to  the  toiling  masses 
of  humanity  their  due  share  of  a  wonderful 
happiness.  True,  one  cannot  bestow  happi- 
ness upon  another.  Happiness  is  an  inner 
state  born  of  the  individual  soul.  But  one 
can  bestow  leisure;  and  it  is  in  the  hour  of 
rest  that  the  soul  labors. 


LXIV 

There  are  those  who  assure  us  that  enforced 
toil  is  a  blessing,  that  it  develops  character 
by  strengthening  the  will.  History  gives 
them  the  lie.  Primitive  man  was  of  necessity 
far  more  industrious  than  are  we ;  yet  his  soul 
slumbered  within  him.  Strictly  speaking  he 
had  no  character;  he  was  moved  by  forces 
outside  his  will.    It  was  not  until  he  could 


The  Deeper  Faith  73 

afiford  to  be  less  industrious,  until  he  was  the 
possessor  of  periods  of  time  in  which  he  could 
do  what  he  willed  to  do,  that  he  became  in 
any  real  sense  a  moral  being.  In  those  first 
divine  hours  when,  freed  from  economic 
necessity,  he  grew  conscious  of  deeper  forces 
within  him  seeking  expression,  he  began  the 
construction  of  his  masterpieces:  reHgion, 
philosophy,  art.  The  Spirit  at  last  awakened 
from  the  sleep  of  centuries,  and  started  on  the 
long  journey  upwards  to  the  sunlit  heights  of 
freedom  and  happiness.  Man,  no  longer  mere 
animal,  walked  upright  and  faced  the  heavens 
with  eager,  questioning  eyes.  Had  the  race 
been  compelled  to  depend  permanently  upon 
enforced  industry  for  progress  we  should  to- 
day be  savages  roaming  the  forest  wilds  with 
no  loftier  desires  than  for  food  and  shelter. 


LXV 

Social  justice  means  the  equable  distribu- 
tion not  so  much  of  wealth,  as  of  leisure.    No 


74  The  Deeper  Faith 

doubt  there  will  always  be  a  certain  amount  of 
enforced  work  for  each  of  us.  But  let  us  not 
dissemble  the  truth :  enforced  work  is  a  curse, 
not  a  blessing,  and  our  aim  should  be  the 
reduction  of  it  to  a  minimum  for  all  men. 
The  ideal  of  social  justice  is  born  of  a  beKef 
in  man,  in  the  divine  in  him,  which  needs 
freedom  from  every  form  of  external  compul- 
sion adequately  to  express  itself. 

Of  course  there  will  be  those  to  whom  free- 
dom will  mean  license.  There  are  doubtless 
those  to-day  who  are  not  vicious  simply  be- 
cause they  have  not  time  to  be.  But  their 
numbers  are  small  in  comparison  with  those 
whom  overwork  drives  to  all  forms  of  excesses, 
and  cruel  pleasures.  Besides,  virtue  born  of 
necessity  is  not  genuine  virtue.  Only  the  free 
choice  of  goodness  for  its  own  sake  has  moral 
value.  Suppose  that  from  this  moment  to 
the  end  of  your  life  every  moment  were  your 
own  absolutely,  to  do  with  as  you  liked,  what 
use  would  you  make  of  the  gift?  By  your 
answer  to  that  question  will  I  read  your 
spiritual  horoscope ! 


The  Deeper  Faith  75 

When  men  are  free  we  shall  at  last  be  able 
to  distinguish  essential  goodness,  the  good- 
ness of  the  soul,  from  the  artificial,  apparent 
goodness  which  is  dependent  for  its  continu- 
ance upon  external,  unwelcome  circumstances. 
The  sheep  will  be  separated  from  the  goats 
without  the  assistance  of  a  mechanical  Judg- 
ment Day,  and  in  a  few  generations  there  will 
be  no  more  goats. 


LXVI 

Freedom  will  not  necessarily  make  men 
happier.  Leisure  produces  its  Schopenhauers 
as  well  as  its  Goethes.  Doubtless  the  amount 
of  sorrow  will  be  as  great  as  that  which  exists 
to-day,  but  it  will  be  a  lofty  sorrow,  so  lofty 
that  it  will  seem,  as  I  have  said,  indistinguish- 
able from  happiness.  It  will  be  a  sorrow  that 
springs  not  from  personal  misfortune  but  from 
sympathy  with  the  eternal  travail  of  the 
universe.  It  will  be  a  sorrow  far  worthier  of 
men  than  the  trivial  pleasures  with  which 


76  The  Deeper  Faith 

to-day  the  masses  must  content  themselves. 
The  barriers  of  selfishness  will  be  burned 
away  by  the  pure  flame  of  mysticism,  and 
soul  rush  to  soul,  and  love,  and  grow  beauti- 
ful. And  whether  it  be  a  common  sorrow  or  a 
common  joy  that  unites  two  souls  what  does 
it  matter,  so  but  their  union  be  productive  of 
beauty ! 

LXVII 

No  one  in  recent  times  has  more  clearly 
perceived  the  supreme  end  of  human  exist- 
ence than  Guyau :  as  the  following  quotation 
from  Ulrreligion  de  L'Avenir  will  demon- 
strate : 

"One  day  when  I  was  seated  at  my  desk 
my  wife  came  up  to  me  and  exclaimed : '  How 
melancholy  you  look!  What  is  the  matter 
with  you?  Tears,  mon  Dieu!  Is  it  anything 
that  I  have  done?'  'Of  course  not;  it  is 
never  anything  that  you  have  done.  I  was 
weeping  over  a  bit  of  abstract  thought,  of 
speculation  on  the  world  and  the  destiny  of 


The  Deeper  Faith  77 

things.  Is  there  not  enough  misery  in  the 
world  to  justify  an  aimless  tear?  And  of 
joy  to  justify  an  aimless  smile?'  The  great 
totality  of  things  in  which  man  lives  may  well 
demand  a  smile  or  a  tear  from  him,  and  it  is 
his  conscious  solidarity  with  the  universe,  the 
impersonal  joy  and  pain  that  he  is  capable  of 
experiencing,  the  faculty,  so  to  speak,  of  im- 
personalizing  himself,  that  is  the  most  durable 
element  in  religion  and  philosophy.  To 
sympathize  with  the  whole  universe,  to  wish 
to  contribute  to  its  amelioration,  to  overpass 
the  limits  of  our  egoism  and  live  the  life  of 
the  universe,  is  the  distinguishing  pursuit  of 
humanity." 


LXVIII 

The  history  of  himianity  is  indeed  the 
history  of  the  struggle  of  eternity  with  time. 
The  human  soul  is  the  battleground  upon 
which  these  two  ancient  cosmic  enemies  come 
to    a    desperate    and    determined    grapple. 


78  The  Deeper  Faith 

There  is  no  hope  of  parley:  the  duel  is  to  the 
death. 

LXIX 

We  are  intended  to  be  the  channels  of  the 
Eternal,  and  it  is  through  us  that  the  Beauty 
that  is  beyond  the  stars  seeks  to  express  itself 
upon  earth.  We  were  created  for  the  service 
of  a  queen  whose  face  we  may  not  look  upon ; 
only  in  fighting  her  battles  do  we  fulfill  our 
destiny,  and  though  we  turn  traitor  and  enlist 
under  the  gaudier  banners  of  time  yet  will 
our  defection  bring  us  only  pain  and  weariness 
of  spirit,  and  we  shall  find  no  peace  till  we 
return  to  the  arms  of  our  long-suffering 
mother. 

LXX 

We  are  alone  in  our  vision  of  a  Truth  that 
endures.  No  other  being  on  this  earth  knows 
what  we  know,  can  read  what  we  read  in  the 
cryptic  messages  of  the  intuitional  soul.  All 
are  blinded  by  the  light  of  the  physical  sun, 


The  Deeper  Faith  79 

all  are  in  the  service  of  things  that  pass  away. 
We  stand  in  spiritual  isolation;  in  the  midst 
of  a  world  of  growth  and  decay  we  have 
dreamed  of  a  Kingdom  where  change  shall  be 
no  more.  And  it  is  this  dream  alone  which 
separates  us  forever  from  the  rest  of  nature. 
Intelligence  we  share  in  varying  degrees  with 
other  animals;  morality,  too,  is  not  exclu- 
sively a  human  possession;  but  what  living 
creatiire  besides  man  has  produced  a  mystic? 


LXXI 

Happiness  for  us  is  dependent  upon  our 
rising  above  the  sharp  barrier  that  separates 
one  moment  from  the  next,  so  that  "life  may 
no  more  jolt  nor  j  ar  but  glide . "  "  Eschew  the 
pleasure  of  the  moment,  that  is,  the  pleasure 
which  can  exist  only  in  a  temporal  order  of 
things,"  so  speaks  to  us  the  voice  of  our 
deepest  convictions.  There  is  a  joy  that  has 
no  reference  to  time  and  place ;  this  is  the  joy 
toward  which  we  must  yearn  with  all  our 


8o  The  Deeper  Faith 

hearts.  This  is  the  joy  that  lives  only  in  the 
innermost  recesses  of  our  being,  at  the  meet- 
ing point  of  the  soul  and  the  Unseen  Reality. 
This  is  the  joy  which  accompanies  the  highest 
love,  whether  individual  or  universal. 


LXXII 

It  is  of  contrast  that  the  pleasures  of  the 
moment  are  woven.  Abundance  spells  sa- 
tiety. Were  there  no  past  pain  with  which  to 
compare  it  our  present  pleasure  would  lose 
much  of  its  intensity.  But  the  happiness  of 
the  Eternal  is  incomparably  unique ;  there  is 
nothing  with  which  one  may  contrast  it. 
Furthermore  the  capacity  of  the  soul  is 
limitless.  One  can  never  have  too  much  of  the 
peace  born  of  communion  with  the  Beauty 
that  is  beyond  the  stars. 

LXXIII 

I  have  said:  "It  seems  indeed  that  the 
nobler  and  loftier  happiness  and  sorrow  be- 


The  Deeper  Faith  8i 

come,  the  nearer  do  they  approach  each 
other. ' '  Is  this  not  true  of  all  our  experience  ? 
As  we  strive  to  ennoble  the  individual  hours 
of  life  we  find  that  they  tend  to  grow  more  and 
more  alike,  as  people  that  live  together  are 
wont  to  do,  until  it  is  with  difficulty  that  we 
can  distinguish  between  them.  Finally  they 
will  merge  and  become  part  of  a  timeless, 
transcendent  Reality.  Then  there  will  re- 
main neither  past  nor  future;  but  only  a 
limitless  present  which  is  as  a  window  through 
which  the  benign  rays  of  the  Eternal  pour  in 
unsullied  glory.  This  is  the  Nirvana  of  Bud- 
dhism, perhaps,  after  all,  the  noblest  creation 
of  the  religious  faculty. 


LXXIV 

Man  achieves  immortality,  then,  by  the 
deliberate  choice  of  his  conscious  will.  So- 
crates was  right  in  his  assertion  that  to  know 
the  good  is  to  do  the  good;  he  was  wrong  in 
limiting  knowledge  to  the  realm  of  the  intel- 


82  The  Deeper  Faith 

lect.  Truth  is  a  matter  of  the  whole  man,  and 
it  is  only  in  developing  all  our  powers  that  we 
clarify  our  vision  of  Reality.  Mere  intellec- 
tual assent  to  a  proposition  is  not  knowledge ; 
nor  until  we  have  felt  and  willed  the  good 
which  our  intellect  perceives,  do  we  know  it  to 
exist. 

LXXV 

By  the  renunciation  of  temporal  goods, 
under  the  influence  of  the  highest  love,  man 
enters  into  Eternal  Life,  which  is  simply  life 
lived  in  the  conscious  presence  of  the  Eternal 
Values.  His  salvation  consists  in  the  realiza- 
tion of  himself  as  the  organ  of  these  Eternal 
Values,  as  part  of  a  divine  and  infinite  Un- 
known ;  and  social  progress  is  to  be  measured 
by  the  extent  to  which  the  mass  of  men  have 
attained  to  such  self-reaHzation. 

LXXVI 

Judged  by  this  standard  the  existent  social 
order  has  little  to  recommend  it.    A  small 


The  Deeper  Faith  83 

minority  of  the  living,  more  favored  of  for- 
tune than  their  fellows,  have  succeeded  in 
partially  extricating  themselves  from  the 
whirlpool  of  selfishness  which  we  call  civiliza- 
tion. They  have  attained  to  a  certain  meas- 
ure of  self-realization,  and  know  the  peace  of 
soul  which  the  world  cannot  give.  But  into 
the  sordid  lives  of  the  trodden  masses  such 
blessedness  can  find  no  entrance.  Brutalized 
by  the  pitiless  struggle  with  their  fellows  for 
the  means  of  subsistence,  and  dwarfed  in  body 
and  mind  by  the  insistent  weight  of  enforced 
joyless  labor,  they  live  and  die  with  no  vision 
of  a  happiness  deeper  and  more  enduring 
than  the  fleeting,  selfish  pleasures  with  which 
they  blindly  seek  to  console  themselves  for  the 
keener  pangs  of  existence.  Their  religion  is 
purely  formal,  for  they  have  no  time  to  exper- 
ience spiritually  the  truths  in  which  they  pro- 
fess to  believe.  Art  and  philosophy  are 
abracadabra,  the  mere  foam  of  words,  pale 
and  without  substance.  So  they  live  and  so 
they  perish,  full  in  the  clutch  of  time  who 
mumbles  them  for  his  sport. 


84  The  Deeper  Faith 

LXXVII 

What  is  to  be  the  remedy  ?  How  are  we  to 
bring  to  the  mass  of  men  that  consciousness 
of  their  high  destiny  which  is  happiness?  I 
have  said  before,  we  cannot  bestow  happiness 
upon  another.  Happiness  is  born  of  the 
individual  soul,  and  the  happiness  of  each 
soul  is  unique.  What  the  masses  need  is  not 
reformation  nor  education,  both  in  their 
present  forms  the  social  weapons  of  the  snob 
and  the  egotist,  nor  religious  creeds  nor 
pseudo-philosophic  jargon, — but  simply  leis- 
ure. They  need  to  be  left  alone,  they  need 
the  healing  influence  of  solitude  without 
which  the  soul  of  man  cannot  develop  in 
harmony  and  beauty.  They  need  the  gift 
of  free  time;  for  it  takes  time  to  overcome 
time. 

LXXVHI 

The  trouble  with  the  reformer  is  that  he  has 
completely  forgotten  the  presence  in  human- 


The  Deeper  Faith  85 

ity  of  the  Unknown.  He  goes  about  the  edu- 
cation of  the  masses  with  the  confidence  of 
the  omniscient.  Why  should  he  hesitate? 
He  knows  the  things  that  satisfy  his  nature; 
he  sees  the  mass  of  men  deprived  of  and  even 
indifferent  to,  these  things.  He  follows  the 
dictates  of  a  too  obvious  logic.  He  becomes 
scientific;  which  is  the  final  stage  of  human 
degradation.  For  what  clearer  evidence  of 
total  spiritual  blindness  could  one  give  than 
the  resolve  to  treat  man,  the  incarnation  of 
mystery,  with  the  impersonal  exactitude  of 
science? 

LXXIX 

Let  us  remember  always  that  the  final  value 
of  knowledge  is  as  a  window  to  the  Unknown. 
Education  is  simply  the  development  of  the 
sense  of  wonder.  The  value  of  a  civiliza- 
tion is  to  be  measured  by  the  extent  to  which 
it  permits  the  entrance  into  human  life  of  a 
supernatural,  or  at  least  superterrestrial, 
radiance ;  and  every  Utopia  is  foredoomed  to 


86  The  Deeper  Faith 

failure  that  does  not  take  into  account  the 
fact  that  man  is  "incurably  religious." 


LXXX 

When  shall  we  learn  to  respect  the  un- 
known god  who  resides  in  every  human  being? 
Not  until  we  have  come  into  communion  with 
the  god  in  our  own  hearts.  Then  we  shall 
understand  that  what  our  less  fortunate 
brothers  demand  of  us  is  not  so  much  food 
and  clothing  and  shelter,  or  education,  or 
any  manifestation  of  brotherly  concern  and 
affection,  but  the  simple  gift  of  leisure,  free 
hours  sufficient  for  self-realization,  the  cup  of 
solitude  into  which  alone  God  pours  the  wine 
of  life. 

LXXXI 

This,  then,  is  the  problem  that  society 
has  to  solve :  the  more  equable  distribution  of 
those  leisiu-e  hours  which  are  breath  of  life 


The  Deeper  Faith  87 

to  the  soul.  Industry  must  be  so  organized 
that  to  each  man  there  shall  be  a  goodly- 
portion  of  free  time  in  which  to  seek  the  self- 
realization  which  is  peace.  This  can  be  only 
achieved  by  the  elimination  of  the  waste  of 
competition,  by  the  substitution  of  the  ideal 
of  cooperation  as  the  most  efficient  method  of 
industrial  production,  and  by  the  simplifi- 
cation of  the  standards  of  living,  that  human 
labor  may  no  longer  be  prostituted  to  the 
production  of  worthless  and  harmful  luxuries. 


LXXXII 

But  however  much  he  may  desire  the  com- 
ing of  justice,  for  the  enlightened  man  there 
can  be  no  weapon  of  warfare  but  persuasion, 
there  is  no  victory  but  the  victory  of  bringing 
light  to  another  soul.  He  who  wholly  and 
heartily  believes  in  the  omnipotence  of  the 
divine  will  inevitably  disparage  the  use,  either 
by  the  individual  or  by  society,  of  any  form 
of  restraint  in  dealing  with  the  evil-doer. 


88  The  Deeper  Faith 

After  all,  law  exists  not  by  reason  of  its  inher- 
ent merit  as  a  means  of  combating  evil  but 
solely  because  of  the  good  man's  cowardice, 
his  lack  of  faith.  Arbitrary  punishment  is 
always  baneful  in  its  influence,  for  it  fosters 
in  the  social  consciousness  the  idea  that  good- 
ness is  not  attractive  enough  to  win  men  with- 
out extraneous  sanctions.  Every  time  we 
punish  a  crime  we  make  it  so  much  harder  for 
those  tempted  to  commit  this  crime  to  con- 
quer their  desire;  for  we  are  nourishing  the 
conviction  that  crime  in  itself  is  so  attractive 
and  remimeratory  that  only  by  inflicting  the 
severest  penalties  for  its  commission  can  we 
dissuade  men  from  constantly  resorting  to 
murder,  robbery,  and  so  forth. 

If  a  thief  steals  my  purse  and  I  have  him 
sent  to  prison  I  am  fostering  in  his  mind  the 
conviction  that  my  purse  is  a  very  valuable 
thing,  and  he  will  be  tempted  to  try  to  steal 
it  again  should  he  have  the  opportunity.  If, 
however,  I  turn  to  him  and  say  with  a  smile, 
"Who  steals  my  purse  steals  trash !  You  are 
welcome  to  it.    Worldly  goods  are  of  no  ac- 


The  Deeper  Faith  89 

count,"  he  will  begin  to  have  his  doubts 
about  the  advantages  of  theft. 

This  is  the  attitude  which  society  should 
take — an  attitude  of  utter  fearlessness,  the 
attitude  of  heroic  souls. 


LXXXIII 

It  was  the  principle  of  non-resistance,  as 
exemplified  in  the  lives  of  the  saints  and  the 
martyrs,  which  brought  about  the  triumph  of 
the  Christian  religion  in  the  centuries  after 
Christ.  When  the  Church  renounced  that 
doctrine,  took  up  arms  and  became  a  world 
power,  her  doom  was  sealed.  For  the  ser- 
mon on  the  mount  is  not  the  impossibly  ideal 
moral  codte  of  a  fanatic;  it  is  the  only  sane 
and  practical  program  of  enduring  reform. 


LXXXIV 

We  have  thrown  about  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  the  same  forbidding  glory  that  sur- 


90  The  Deeper  Faith 

rounds  his  person.  The  unique  deification  of 
Jesus  by  Christians  reHeved  them  of  the 
obligation  to  Hve  as  their  master  Hved.  To 
make  Christ  God  is  the  easiest  way  of  weaken- 
ing the  exigent  beauty  of  his  personality. 
It  thus  becomes  impossible  to  cite  to  a  Chris- 
tian, as  an  example  of  what  man  should  be, 
the  life  of  the  prophet  of  Nazareth.  He  will 
shake  his  head  wisely  and  murmur,  "Ah,  but 
Jesus  was  God,  we  are  only  men."  By  mak- 
ing their  heroes  more  than  human  men  dis- 
creetly free  themselves  from  the  necessity  of 
living  great  and  good  Hves. 


LXXXV 

God  pimishes  evil-doers  by  the  fact  of  His 
existence,  and  that  is  the  only  punishment  He 
needs  to  employ.  That  the  good  is  and  that 
it  is  destined  to  triumph,  persuade  the  wicked 
man  of  this  and  you  have  at  one  and  the  same 
time  punished  and  reformed  him.  Persuade 
him  of  this  by  demonstrating  your  own  utter 


The  Deeper  Faith  91 

faith  in  Right  and  its  ultimate  triumph,  which 
does  not  need  bars  and  gyves  or  the  guillotine 
to  accomplish  its  ends.  Instead  of  that  you 
kill  or  imprison  him,  thus  proving  to  his 
entire  satisfaction  that  he  was  right  in  believ- 
ing that  there  is  nothing  between  evil  doing 
and  success  but  physical  force — the  force  of 
the  cowardly  majority  of  "good"  men. 


LXXXVI 

But  must  we  not  at  least  protect  the  weak 
from  the  brutalities  of  the  strong  and  wicked? 
Shall  we  stand  by  idly,  without  protest,  while 
evil  triumphs  and  the  heathen  rage?  The 
good  need  no  protection  but  the  conscious- 
ness of  their  own  goodness ;  and  the  better  a 
man  becomes,  the  more  emphatically  will  he 
decry  the  use  of  force  in  his  defense.  Jesus 
rebuked  Peter  grasping  the  sword ;  at  no  other 
moment  of  his  career  did  he  evidence  more 
clearly  his  utter  faith  in  the  omnipotence  of 
Goodness. 


92  The  Deeper  Faith 

LXXXVII 

It  does  not  matter  if  good  men  perish: 
Goodness  endures.  It  is  at  the  heart  of  things, 
it  is  the  universe.  The  triumph  of  Truth  is 
not  dependent  on  our  feeble  efforts:  Truth 
triumphs  eternally;  It  is,  though  worlds  de- 
cay. We  do  not  need  to  build  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  we  have  only  to  open  our  eyes  and 
find  it  perfect,  complete,  as  it  has  been  from 
all  eternity,  as  it  shall  be  forever.  It  does  not 
need  us,  but  we  need  it.  Our  one  duty  is  to 
save  ourselves,  to  discover  the  divinity  that 
resides  within  us,  that  our  souls  may  be  free 
of  every  external  compulsion. 


LXXXVIII 

It  is  not  the  good  who  need  to  be  protected 
from  the  cruelty  of  the  wicked,  it  is  the  wicked 
who  need  to  be  protected  from  the  cowardice 
of  the  good;  for  it  is  cowardice  that  blurs 
man's  spiritual  vision  and  makes  him  incap- 


The  Deeper  Faith  93 

able  of  seeing  things  in  their  true  proportions. 
The  cowardly  good  stand  between  the  wicked 
and  the  regenerating  light  of  Truth.  How 
can  we  expect  the  wicked  to  believe  in  Good- 
ness if  the  faith  of  the  good  is  so  weak  that  it 
is  afraid  of  suffering  and  death? 


LXXXIX 

Says  Mr.  Paul  Elmer  More:  "It  would  be 
hard  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  this 
discovery,  made  so  many  years  ago  in  the 
forest  of  India,  that  the  eternal  and  infinite 
expectation  of  the  soul  is  not  to  be  sought  in 
submission  to  an  incomprehensible  and  in- 
human force  impelling  the  world,  nor  yet  in 
obedience  to  a  personal  God,  but  is  already 
within  us  awaiting  revelation,  is  in  fact  our 
very  Self  of  Self."  This  is  the  Truth  that 
saves,  the  knowledge  that  God  is  within  us, 
that  every  sin  is  a  sin  against  Self.  How  are 
we  to  persuade  men  of  this  truth?  By  relin- 
quishing every  form  of  arbitrary  punishment, 


94  The  Deeper  Faith 

by  leaving  the  wicked  to  the  vengeance  of  the 
divinity  in  their  own  hearts.  For  every  time 
we  punish  a  human  beingwe  make  it  so  much 
harder  for  the  voice  of  conscience  to  speak  to 
him ;  but  every  sin  that  we  forgive  is  an  exi- 
gent summons  to  tjie  Unknown  God  that 
slumbers  in  the  heart  of  the  offender.  Let  us 
show  the  evil-doer  that  what  stands  between 
him  and  success  is  not  the  revengeful  power  of 
just  men  but  the  more  potent  sorrow  of  his 
own  outraged  soul. 


"       XC 

The  only  legitimate  function  of  social 
organization  is  the  production  of  enlightened 
human  beings.  Now  the  salient  feature  of 
enlightenment  is  self-sufficiency.  This  is  the 
Rome  to  which  all  roads  of  spiritual  endea- 
vor lead.  And  he  who  arrives  at  the  goal 
finds  himself  freed  of  fear  and  of  every  de- 
sire to  punish.  "No  one  can  harm  me  but 
myself." 


The  Deeper  Faith  95 

XCI 

It  is  not  an  easy  doctrine,  this  of  non- 
resistance,  nor  one  likely  to  find  wide  accept- 
ance in  our  hesitant  age  of  efficiency,  when 
waste  is  the  one  unpardonable  sin.  Of  our 
spiritual  leaders,  as  of  our  men  of  affairs,  we 
demand  immediate  results;  and  no  prophet 
may  hope  for  a  hearing  among  us  who  cannot 
first  of  all  convince  us  that  he  is  a  practical 
man.  And  to  be  a  practical  man  means 
neither  more  nor  less  than  to  be  driven  by  the 
fear  of  remaining  personally  ineffectual  to 
the  adoption  of  compromise  as  a  method  of 
achieving  reform. 


XCII 

There  is  no  subtler,  and  consequently  more 
dangerous,  form  of  egotism  than  that  which 
leads  us  to  confuse  the  success  or  failure  of  the 
ideals  for  which  we  stand  with  our  personal 
success  or  failure.    Once  let  a  man  become 


96  The  Deeper  Faith 

convinced  that  the  ideal  which  he  loves  can 
never  become  effectual  among  men  save 
through  his  personal  efforts,  and  there  is  no 
foreseeing  to  what  depths  of  trickery  and 
base  compromise  he  may  descend  to  achieve 
his  purpose.  And  the  more  passionately  he 
loves  his  ideal  the  greater  will  be  the  tempta- 
tion to  sacrifice  everything  to  its  attainment. 


XCIII 

It  is  this  very  sense  of  false  responsibility 
that  has  so  much  to  do  with  the  overwhelm- 
ing fear  of  failure  which  is  the  curse  of  mod- 
ern life.  From  this  foul  stalk  springs  the 
terrible  carrion-flower  of  international  jeal- 
ousy and  hate.  Thus  we  Americans  have 
convinced  ourselves  that  we  are  the  divinely 
appointed  guardians  of  political  liberty  and 
that  were  America,  the  land  of  the  free,  to 
perish  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  the  ideal 
of  political  liberty  would  perish  with  her. 
So  we  reinforce  our  natural  egotism  by  the 


The  Deeper  Faith  97 

assumption  of  a  moral  purpose,  and  in  the 
name  of  liberty  prepare  to  defend  ourselves 
against  the  attack  of  a  foreign  enemy.  Thus, 
also,  England,  under  the  guise  of  assuming 
"the  white  man's  burden"  of  educating  in- 
ferior races  to  the  broad  intellectual  outlook 
of  British  Philistinism,  has  felt  called  upon 
by  the  voice  of  God  to  subjugate  and  rule 
every  portion  of  the  inhabitable  globe  on 
which  she  can  successfully  lay  the  heavy  hand 
of  empire. 

And  as  it  is  with  nations,  so  also  with 
individuals.  Do  we  not  know  men  in  public 
life  who  have  used  every  means,  however 
vile,  to  further  their  own  advance,  on  the 
plea  that  it  was  necessary  for  them  to  attain 
to  political  prominence  before  they  could 
carry  out  the  reforms  which  lay  so  near  their 
hearts?  Do  we  not  behold  similar  instances 
in  our  industrial  world  ?  How  often  is  it  not 
urged  in  extenuation  of  some  financial  giant 
that  though  the  means  he  used  to  attain  his 
position  of  control  may  not  always  have  been 
above  suspicion  yet  the  use  which  he  has 


98  The  Deeper  Faith 

made  of  his  power  is  ample  justification  for 
whatever  in  his  past  will  not  bear  a  too  close 
scrutiny.  Is  not  our  civilization  poisoned  at 
the  very  source  by  the  fetid  doctrine  of  exped- 
iency? 


XCIV 

The  means  justifies  the  end!  So  they 
have  ever  argued,  who  love  life  and  success 
more  than  the  Eternal  Values.  And  it  seems 
we  have  not  yet  realized  the  absurdity  of  a 
theory  which  divides  existence  into  two  dis- 
junctive entities,  which  does  not  see  that 
every  means  is  itself  an  end,  that  Eternal  Life 
is  above  all  a  question  of  this  present  moment. 
Now  and  again  some  prophet  of  God's  truth 
raises  his  warning  voice  against  the  cowardly 
temporizing  so  characteristic  of  our  genera- 
tion, but  deafened  by  the  insistent  sophistries 
of  our  practical  reformers,  we  cannot  hear, 
we  cannot  understand. 


The  Deeper  Faith  99 

xcv 

And  yet,  were  we  to  study  the  lives  of  the 
great  and  good  men  of  all  ages,  we  should 
surely  learn  that  there  is  but  one  way  to  live 
for  an  ideal,  namely,  to  live  as  though  that 
ideal  were  already  a  reality.  Act  as  you 
would  act  were  the  world  of  which  you  dream 
the  real  world;  so  speaks  the  voice  of  the 
Spirit.  Is  it  not  true  that  the  reality  of  our 
ideals  is  in  large  measure  dependent  upon 
ourselves,  that  we  create  the  environment  in 
which  we  live  ?  If  I  believe  in  justice  it  is  not 
necessary  that  I  should  wait  until  all  men 
accept  that  ideal  before  making  it  a  reality 
in  my  life.  It  is  necessary  only  that  I  should 
be  just,  it  is  necessary  that  I  should  not 
compromise  with  injustice.  If,  however,  in 
order  to  reach  a  position  of  power  in  which  I 
may  make  justice  accepted  of  all  men  I  des- 
cend to  the  accomplishment  of  one  act  of  in- 
justice I  have  nullified  in  advance  the  effect 
of  all  my  efiEorts. 


100         The  Deeper  Faith 
xcvi 

Let  us  live  always  in  the  highest  world 
which  we  can  conceive  to  exist ;  it  is  the  most 
effectual  way  of  helping  others  as  well  as 
ourselves.  The  highest  is  stiU  the  best;  and 
there  is  no  fear  that  our  most  beautiful 
dreams  can  ever  exhaust  Reality.  Let  us 
refuse  to  descend  into  a  lower  sphere  in  order 
to  attain  a  greater  degree  of  efficiency.  All 
the  lower  levels  of  vision  are  more  plentifully 
inhabited  than  ours,  and  the  higher  we  climb 
the  fewer  are  our  companions.  Nevertheless 
we  must  not  waver.  If  we  succumb  to  the 
cold  of  the  summits,  others,  stronger  and  no 
less  determined,  will  follow.  .  .  ,  And  we 
shall  at  least  have  Hved  our  deepest  lives. 


XCVII 

Compromise  is  essentially  a  living  down  to 
the  public — a  thing  to  be  shunned  as  pesti- 
lence by  all  to  whom  the  art  of  noble  living  is 


The  Deeper  Faith         loi 

a  holy  and  enduring  joy.  So  thought  Jesus 
when  he  gave  himself  to  be  crucified  rather 
than  compromise  with  the  authorities,  so 
thought  Luther,  and  Shelley,  and  Karl  Marx. 
So  thought  our  own  Sidney  Lanier,  when  after 
having  endured  years  of  penury  rather  than 
for  one  moment  prostitute  the  high  gift  of 
poetry  that  was  in  him  he  penned  those  sub- 
Hme  words:  "It  is  of  little  consequence 
whether  I  fail ;  the  I  in  the  matter  is  a  small 
business:  'Que  mon  nom  soit  fletri,  que  la 
France  soit  libre !'  quoth  Danton ;  which  is  to 
say,  interpreted  by  my  environment :  Let  my 
name  perish — the  poetry  is  good  poetry  and 
the  music  good  music,  and  beauty  dieth  not, 
and  the  heart  that  needs  it  will  find  it." 


XCVIII 

There  is  an  argument  in  favor  of  compro- 
mise not  infrequently  employed  in  these  latter 
days  even  by  men  of  spiritual  insight,  an 
argument   the   more   dangerous   because  it 


102         The  Deeper  Faith 

makes  its  appeal  to  one  of  the  finest  moral 
attributes,  the  spirit  of  tolerance.  It  begins 
with  the  imiversally  acknowledged  postulate 
that  human  beings  are  weak  and  erring 
creatures,  passing  from  this  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  is  not  just  to  demand  too  much  of 
their  undeveloped  spiritual  powers.  One 
must  be  willing  to  meet  them  half  way.  One 
must  allow  for  the  fact  that  man  is  still  in  his 
childhood,  that  he  has  not  attained  to  the 
self-control  and  balance  of  maturity.  One 
must  not  expect  him  to  aspire  to  the  unat- 
tainable. 

Now  in  so  far  as  this  course  of  reasoning 
tends  to  make  us  more  charitable  toward  our 
neighbor,  his  shortcomings  and  inconsisten- 
cies of  conduct,  his  failure  to  attain  the  ideal, 
it  is  wholly  salutary  in  its  influence.  We 
cannot  be  too  tolerant  of  one  another;  we 
cannot  be  too  ready  to  forgive  and  to  forget. 
The  growth  of  the  spirit  of  universal  tolerance 
is  surely  one  of  the  most  inspiring  facts  of  the 
modern  era.  Nothing  is  more  certain  than 
that  every  attempt  on  our  part  to  pass  moral 


The  Deeper  Faith         103 

judgment  upon  the  act  of  another  is  impertin- 
ent and  absurd ;  for  not  until  we  know  all  the 
antecedents  of  an  act  can  we  judge  as  to  its 
moral  value,  and  granted  such  omniscience 
we  should  doubtless  find  that  there  was 
nothing  to  forgive. 

We  must  be  tolerant  even  of  ourselves.  It 
is  not  always  easy  to  forgive  others  their 
trespasses  against  us;  but  it  is  more  difficult 
to  forgive  ourselves.  And  yet  one  is  perhaps 
not  truly  good  until  one  has  forgiven  oneself 
everything.  Indeed  it  is  possible  that  for- 
giveness of  others  is  somewhat  of  hypocrisy 
in  him  who  has  not  yet  learned  to  for- 
give himself.  Is  not  remorse,  after  all, 
only  a  subtle  form  of  vengeance?  And 
if  I  cannot  learn  to  forgive  a  sin  in  my- 
self how  shall  I  forgive  the  same  sin  in 
another? 

But  when  it  is  urged,  as  it  often  is,  that 
because  man  is  morally  frail  therefore  we 
must  lower  our  ideals  to  fit  the  exigencies  of 
human  nature,  the  plea  becomes  at  once 
specious  and  entirely  harmful  in  its  influence. 


104         The  Deeper  Faith 

For  while  it  is  impossible  that  we  should  be 
too  tolerant  in  regard  to  the  shortcomings  of 
men,  their  failure  to  realize  their  ideals  in 
their  daily  lives,  it  is  no  less  impossible  that 
we  should  be  too  exacting  in  demanding  of 
men  the  very  highest  ideals  of  which  they 
are  capable.  We  must  indeed  be  tolerant  of 
the  failings  of  actual  himianity,  we  dare  not 
and  must  not  be  tolerant  of  any  blemish  in 
that  glorified  humanity  which  should  exist 
as  an  ideal  in  the  soul  of  every  man  and 
woman.  We  must  not  make  our  heaven  less 
beautiful  in  order  to  make  it  more  attainable. 
For  by  so  much  as  we  lower  our  ideals  by  so 
much  do  we  lower  the  real ;  and  conversely  to 
ennoble  our  ideals  is  to  ennoble  in  like  meas- 
ure the  course  of  our  daily  lives.  The  distance 
between  the  ideal  and  the  real  remains  ever 
constant;  they  move  on  different  planes  but 
they  never  vary  their  relative  positions. 
"Be  ye  perfect,"  said  Jesus  to  his  disciples, 
knowing  well  that  they  could  not  fulfill  his 
injunction.  They  did  not  become  perfect, 
doubtless,  Peter,  and  James  and  John,  and 


The  Deeper  Faith         105 

the  rest ;  but  they  approached  nearer  perfec- 
tion than  they  could  have  done  had  their 
Master  offered  them  an  ideal  less  lofty,  a  goal 
within  reach  of  their  attainment. 


XCIX 

Are  we  not  justified,  then,  in  assuming  that 
only  in  uncompromising  fidelity  to  the  high- 
est ideal  which  we  can  conceive  do  we  fulfill 
our  destiny?  This  alone  is  happiness,  this 
alone  is  success,  that  one  should  have  utter 
confidence  in  the  impulses  of  the  soul,  follow- 
ing them  gladly  and  freely  whether  they  lead 
to  the  scaffold  or  to  the  throne.  And  as  for 
efficiency  and  achievement,  who  shall  judge 
of  these  things?  Or  why  should  one  be 
greatly  troubled  by  such  considerations, 
bred  as  they  are  of  an  unworthy  fear 
of  failure,  since  in  trusting  the  soul  one 
knows  oneself  in  harmony  with  the  Unseen 
Reality  in  which  is  neither  impotence  nor 
defeat  ? 


io6         The  Deeper  Faith 


Finally,  let  us  remember  that  it  is  always 
possible  to  die.  Death  has  been  too  often 
regarded  as  the  enemy  of  man,  the  cruel 
destroyer  who  drags  us  from  the  feast  of  life 
just  when  the  merriment  has  reached  its 
height.  In  reality,  death  is  the  kindest  and 
most  loyal  of  all  our  friends.  He  is  the  de- 
fender of  things  virtuous,  he  is  the  eternal 
guardian  of  the  inner  freedom.  To  the  good 
man  he  is  the  source  of  courage  in  the  battle, 
of  new  hope  in  the  hour  of  defeat ;  through  the 
agony  of  the  torture  chamber  the  martyr 
glimpses  the  approaching  form  of  the  last 
liberator  and  steels  himself  to  bear  what  yet 
remains  of  his  portion  of  earthly  suffering. 
Were  man  not  mortal  the  triumph  of  evil 
upon  earth  would  be  complete ;  for  who  of  us 
could  boast  the  will  to  defy  the  ungodly  and 
bear  an  eternity  of  unmitigated  torture  for 
the  sake  of  an  ideal,  however  beautiful?  It 
is  the  knowledge  that  the  power  of  the  wicked, 
and  of  the  foolish,  also,  is  limited  by  the 


The  Deeper  Faith         107 

boundaries  of  the  kingdom  of  the  dead,  it  is 
this  divine  knowledge  alone  that  can  imbue 
us  with  the  unfaltering  passion  for  the  highest 
in  life,  with  the  determination  to  give  our- 
selves in  all  things  to  the  service  of  the 
Eternal  Values. 


CI 

And,  again,  Death  is  the  unfailing  reminder 
to  us  of  the  existence  of  the  Unknown.  Im- 
mersed in  the  petty  cares  and  pleasures  of 
daily  living  we  are  prone  to  forget  the  mys- 
tery that  surrounds  our  souls  as  the  atmo- 
sphere surrounds  our  bodies.  We  grow  sordid 
and  selfish  and  unheeding  of  the  things  that 
abide;  the  lamp  of  the  deeper  faith  flickers 
painfully  in  the  fetid  atmosphere  of  spiritual 
stagnation.  Then  it  is  Death  who  takes  pity 
of  us,  it  is  Death  who  with  the  swift  cruelty 
of  love  startles  us  from  our  torpor  and  re- 
vivifies the  languid  sinews  of  the  soul.  Kneel- 
ing beside  the  dead  body  of  one  whom  he  has 
loved,  every  man  is  a  mystic. 


io8         The  Deeper  Faith 

CII 

If  it  were  not  for  Death  it  would  be  far 
more  difficult  to  believe  in  God.  We  should 
perhaps  accept  the  conclusions  of  a  false 
science  and  see  in  the  life  of  earth,  in  the 
behests  of  Nature,  in  the  meaningless  struggle 
to  survive,  the  complete  explanation  of  our 
complex  spiritual  selves.  But  so  long  as 
Death  is,  so  long  shall  we  know  by  the  in- 
vincible logic  of  the  heart  that  there  is  a 
Beauty  beyond  the  stars  in  which  and  for 
which  we  live,  that  there  is  a  Love  that 
transcends  time  and  that  cares  for  us.  For, 
as  Hauptmann  has  said,  "Death  is  the 
masterpiece  of  Eternal  Love." 


cm 

So  with  the  glory  of  Life  and  the  tenderness 
of  Death  as  eternal  witnesses  of  the  inex- 
haustible goodness  of  the  universe  there  is 
no  reason  why  we  should  hesitate  to  live  the 


The  Deeper  Faith         109 

highest  life  of  which  we  are  capable.     All 
things  speak  to  the  soul  urging  it  upward. 

He  who  thus  throws  himself  blindly,  con- 
fidingly, upon  the  Unseen  Breast,  renouncing 
every  appeal  to  human  law  and  sanction, 
trusting  impHcitly  in  the  Spirit  to  do  aU 
things  well,  he  finds  the  freedom  and  the 
peace  which  the  world  cannot  give.  In  him 
is  fulfilled  the  sjnithesis  which  is  perhaps  the 
goal  of  our  present  search;  the  merging  of 
the  mystic  and  the  humanitarian.  He  will 
have  great  pity  of  the  sorrows  of  men,  and 
greater  pity  of  the  inner  bHndness  which 
alone  lends  sorrow  its  bitter  sting.  He  will 
be  no  idle  dreamer ;  he  will  do  his  share  toward 
making  the  world  a  nobler,  fairer  dwelling 
place.  But  he  will  never  forget  that  in  order 
to  enjoy  the  world,  one  must  be  ready  at 
a  moment  to  renounce  all  things  and  die, 
should  the  spirit  so  ordain.  He  will  respect 
the  free  personalities  of  men;  he  will  strive, 
not  to  save  others,  but  only  to  give  them  the 
opportunity  of  saving  themselves.  He  will 
know  how  to  honor  woman,  and  in  the  eyes  of 


no         The  Deeper  Faith 

a  child  will  read  strange,  glad  tidings.  And 
ever  in  and  beyond  created  things  he  will 
feel  the  presence  of  the  Unknown,  Source  of 
all  being  and  its  ultimate  desire. 


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